Jewels in Her Crown: Treasures of Columbia University Libraries Special Collections

185.  Tatsukichi Minobe (1873-1948).  Kenpō satsuyō [Principles of the Constitution]. Tokyo: Yuhikaku, 1932. Arthur W. Diamond Law Library, Toshiba Library for Japanese Legal Research

Today Tatsukichi Minobe is one of the most respected legal scholars in the history of Japan. Educated in Germany, he represented the liberal constitutional views against views of his senior colleague at the Imperial University of Tokyo, Yatsuka Hozumi and his successor, Shinkinchi Uesugi. Minobe did not espouse the divinity of the emperor. He argued that the sovereignty resided in the state, of which the emperor is an organ (kikan). Though Minobe was not the first nor the only one to challenge Hozumi's theory, his "emperor-organ theory" was severely attacked when the military power ascended in the 1930's. As a result, his publications on constitutional law including Kenpō satsuyō were banned from the public in 1935. After World War II, however, his views gained much popularity. This is the fifth revised edition of Kenpō satsuyō, originally published in 1923.

Gift of the Family of Justice Jiro Tanaka, 1982