Tsuda Mamichi


Baron Tsuda Mamichi was a Japanese statesman and legal scholar in the Meiji period. He was one of the founding members of the Meirokusha with Mori Arinori, Nishimura Shigeki, Fukuzawa Yukichi, Kato Hiroyuki, Nakamura Masanao, and Nishi Amane.

Early life

Tsuda was born into a local samurai household in Tsuyama Domain. In his early days, he studied rangaku under Mitsukuri Gempo and military science under Sakuma Shozan. He became an instructor at the Bansho Shirabesho institute run by the Tokugawa bakufu to study western books and science. In 1862, he was selected, together with Nishi Amane, by the government for training in the Netherlands in western political science, constitutional law, and economics. They departed in 1863 with a Dutch physician Dr. J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort, who had set up the first teaching hospital for western medicine in Nagasaki.
The two Japanese students were put in the care of Professor Simon Vissering, who taught Political Economy, Statistics and Diplomatic History at the University of Leyden. They developed a genuine friendship with Vissering who was conscious of the long-standing friendship between Japan and the Netherlands through Dejima. He felt that the students' desire for knowledge would make them likely future participation in Japan's modernization. Vissering, a member of La Vertu Lodge No, 7, Leyden introduced them to Freemasonry, of which they became the first Japanese adherents on October 20, 1864.

Government career

After his return to Japan in 1868, Tsuda wrote the Kaisei Kokuho ron, which was the first book in Japanese on the subject. He was recruited by the new Meiji government and helped in the first codification of Japanese laws. In 1869, he drafted Japan's first laws prohibiting human trafficking, and the new national law code was promulgated in 1870. In 1871, he assisted the Foreign Ministry in negotiations with Qing dynasty China and accompanied Date Munenori to Beijing. He also served in the Genrōin and in the House of Peers of the Diet of Japan after the 1890 Japanese general election. Tsuda was also an active member of the Meirokusha, and contributed numerous articles to its journal.
He was ennobled with the title of danshaku under the kazoku peerage system.