Abstract: Taisuke Itagaki’s nationalism is a typical embodiment of that in Meiji period of Japan, which experienced stages of establishment to expansion. In the period of Free Civil Right Movement, he instrumentalized civil rights,and asserted that upholding civil rights must be done before safeguarding national sovereignty.Before and after the RussoJapanese War,I tagaki Taisuke rationalized the foreign expansion behavior of Japan in order to protect national interests,ignoring and trampling on the legitimate rights and interests of China and the korean Penisula.At the same time,he flaunted“pacifism”in the binary opposition between dictatorship and constitutionalism,and cmbinied that with the opposition against hierarchy and the awareness of racial disparities by adapting to changes in modern Japanese society.

Key words: nationalism, Taisuke Itagaki, national right, civil right, pacifism