It may seem odd that samurai would help bring about their own destruction, but, as Robert Bellah explains in a study of the Tokugawa period, "It is important then to realize what was their social position under the old regime.... They had a legitimized status as rulers [in regard to] the common people but they had very little else which committed them in any rigid sense to the old system. They had no land and not even adequate stipends."

On the other hand, they had a lot to gain by the overthrow for it was many lowerranked samurai who became leaders in the new government. Bellah continues, "It was largely from their ranks that the new... government was formed and they provided the leadership for many of the innovations, economic and cultural as well as governmental, of the new era."

In 1867, the...