At the time the treaties were negotiated, however, the issue was not
one of equality. The issue was whether there should be any treaties
at all. For many Japanese wanted no opening of Japan’s door. After
the first treaties, nevertheless, a growing number of Westerners
began to live in the ports opened to foreigners. The cry to “expel
the foreigner” was then raised. Coupled with this slogan was the
challenging demand to “revere the Emperor”--a direct call to revolution
against the Shogun. The whole country was aroused. It seethed with
internal strife and dissension, with plots and counter-plots, and even
with armed conflict.
The anti-foreign movement was merely the spark that set off a
bonfire that had been long in the making. By 1850 the Shogunate
was nearly bankrupt. The feudal lords, or _daimyo_, were in the
same position. Most of their landed property was mortgaged to the
merchant-bankers--the rising capitalist class. Thousands of _samurai_
were poverty-stricken. The condition of the peasantry, taxed more and
more heavily to pay for the debts of the feudal lords, was desperate.
Even the wealthy merchants, irked by feudal restrictions and the social
and political inferiority that was forced upon them, were dissatisfied.
The demand for change was growing broader and deeper.