Itagaki Taisuke (21 May 1837-16 July 1919) was a Japanese general and liberal politician who founded the Jiyuto party, Japan's first political party, in 1881.
Biography[]
Itagaki Taisuke was born into a middle-ranking samurai family in the Tosa Domain in 1837, and he served as a councillor to daimyo Yamauchi Toyoshige before becoming a leader of the Jinshotai assault force during the Boshin War. After the war, he served as a Councilor of State and was involved in the abolition of the han system in 1871. He resigned from the Meiji regime in 1873 over disagreement with the government's policy of restraint toward Korea and it opposition to the Choshu-Satsuma domination of the new government. In 1874, he formed the Aikoku Koto party to appeal to the discontented remnants of the samurai class and the rural aristocracy. Itagaki led the push for democratic reform while fusing samurai ethos with Western liberalism, and he came to lead the Aikokusha in 1875, the Freedom and People's Rights Movement in 1878, and the Jiyuto from 1181. He went on to serve as Home Minister from 1896 to 1898, and he retired in 1900 and died in 1919.