Edo Period

(history)
During the Edo period, samurai increasingly became courtiers, bureaucrats, and administrators rather than warriors. With no warfare after the early 17th century, over time, samurai during the Edo period gradually lost their military function. By the end of the Edo period, samurai were aristocratic bureaucrats for the daimyo, with their daisho, the paired long and short swords of the samurai (cf. 'katana' and wakizashi) becoming more of a symbolic emblem of power rather than a weapon used in daily life. They still had the legal right to cut down any commoner who did not show proper respect; in what extent this right was used, however, is unknown.

Theoretical obligations between a samurai and his lord (usually a daimyo) increased from the Genpei era to the Edo period. They were strongly emphasized by the teachings of Confucius and Mencius (ca 550 B.C.) which were required reading for the educated samurai class. During the Edo period, after the general end of hostilities, the code of Bushido was formalized. It is important to note that bushido was an ideal, but it is surprising how uniform the code remained over time from the 13th century to the 19th century. The ideals of Bushido transcended social class, time and geographic location of the warrior class.

Bushido was formalized by many samurai in this time of peace in much the same fashion as chivalry was formalized after knights as a warrior class became obsolete in Europe. The conduct of samurai became a favorable model of a citizen in Edo with the emphasis on formalities. With time on their hands, samurai spent more time on the pursuit of other interests becoming scholars. Bushido still survives in present-day Japanese society, as do many other aspects of their way of life.

Meiji Restoration

By this time, the Way of Death and Desparateness had been eclipsed by a rude awakening in 1853, when Commodore Matthew Perry's massive steamships from the US Navy first imposed broader commerce, American Style, on the once-dominant national polity. Prior to that, only a few harbor towns under strict control from the Shogunate were able to participate in Western trade, and even then, it was based largely on the idea of playing the Franciscans and Dominicans off one another (in exchange for the crucial arquebus technology, which in turn was a major contributor to the downfall of the classical samurai).
The last hurrah of original samurai was in 1867 when samurai from Choshu and Satsuma provinces defeated the shogunate forces in favor of the rule of the emperor. The two provinces were the lands of the daimyo that submitted to Ieyasu after the Battle of Sekigahara (1600).
Other sources claim that the last samurai were in 1877, during the Satsuma Rebellion in the Battle of Shiroyama.
The main players of the revolt came from lower class samurai in every province. Their ultimate political goal was the same: to maintain the independence of Japan against Western powers. But the two daimyo clashed first and these bloody conflicts lasted for years. At last, they realized that a large serious civil war must be avoided because that was just what the foreign powers waited for. So the last shogun Tokugawa Yoshinobu returned the governing to the emperor to avoid the war. Some resisted, believing this was a coup d'état by Choshu and Satsuma and that the government was in their hands. Groups of Tohoku samurai organized an armed resistance but they were eventually defeated.
Emperor Meiji abolished the samurai's right to be the only armed force in favor of a more modern, western-style conscripted army. Samurai became Shizoku (ho retained some of their salaries, but the right to wear a katana in public was eventually abolished along with the right to cut down commoners who paid them disrespect. The samurai finally came to an end after hundreds of years of enjoyment of their status, their powers, and their ability to shape the government of Japan. However, the rule of the state by the military class was not yet over.