When the Imperial Diet was inaugurated in 1890, he was elected as a member of the House of Peers by Imperial command, and he assumed a post of the Director-General of Cabinet Legislation Bureau in the first Matsukata cabinet that was formed in the following year.
明治23年（1890年）の帝国議会発足とともに貴族院議員に勅撰され、翌年成立した第1次松方内閣において法制局長官に就任した。