“Though Itagaki dies, liberty never will.”
Tosa becomes a movement's stronghold.

Itagaki Taisuke's 1874 petition for a national assembly helped ignite a nationwide push for constitutional government — and Tosa, drawing on its own goshi-versus-joshi history, became one of its most committed bases.

From petition to national movement

After resigning from the new Meiji government over a policy dispute, Itagaki Taisuke and others submitted a formal petition in 1874 calling for a publicly elected national assembly. It was one of several such petitions circulating at the time, but Itagaki's stature and Tosa's existing political networks gave it outsized influence, and it's conventionally treated as the movement's starting point.

The line everyone remembers — and its uncertain origin

After being stabbed by an assailant in Gifu in 1882, Itagaki is famously said to have cried, "though Itagaki dies, liberty never will." Contemporary newspaper accounts vary on the exact wording, and some historians suspect the line was polished, or invented outright, by reporters covering the incident — a case where the legend may have outpaced the record.

A movement, not one man. Itagaki is the name most remembered, but the movement drew heavily on Tosa's rural goshi networks — many of the same families whose grievances trace back to the Sekigahara-era caste split covered on the Sekigahara & Tosa page.

“Though Itagaki dies, liberty never will.”Tosa becomes a movement's stronghold.

From petition to national movement

The line everyone remembers — and its uncertain origin

“Though Itagaki dies, liberty never will.”
Tosa becomes a movement's stronghold.