The United States has something that doesn’t belong to it.  There’s a lot of tourist activity there though.  In conventional terms, the United States is made up of 50 separate states, the most recent addition being Hawaii.  States joined up over time making a larger and larger nation of smaller sovereign governments sharing their sovereignty with a federal power.  American federalism is an interesting subject but this post is about something much more nerdy I think.

It would seem, that Hawaii never legally became a state.  Oh sure, the vote was taken and Hawaiians voted overwhelmingly for statehood over being a territory but looking at and accepting the result as a simple truism is to ignore the cause.  How did Hawaii actually become a territory in the first place and was it traded away from the indigenous people that lived there?  The answer is a fairly complex story that I’ll try and simplify here.

Hawaii actually used to be an independent nation overseen by a Monarchy.  Going even further back to see how the monarchy was established, you could read on how local chieftains were warred upon and their lands claimed by a central power.  Bloody but legitimate in a way.  The manner in which the monarchy was put down in the late 1800′s however is a different sort of tale.

The Monarchy was styled after British governance in 1795 and successive constitutions over the years limited the power of the Monarch in phases, placing it in the hands of an elected legislature.  American and European influences on the island nation ensured that these groups enjoyed more rights as elected law makers under each successive constitution.  What remained clear however was that the Monarchy and constitutional government that existed was independent of any other nation.

Hawaii was undoubtedly its own independent state.

As the United States did its thing, American plantation owners shipped sugar to the main land in boat loads.  Unfortunately, despite the sugar being grown in large part by American land owners, it was subject to tariffs as Hawaii was an independent nation.  It was a terrible sight for Americans to look on as their own government made more money off their sugar crops than they did.

Speculation seems to indicate that the solution thought of by American and European landowners was to have Hawaii cede its sovereignty to the United States and become a dependant territory under American rule.  Among the over 40,000 Hawaiians at the time, a group that advanced this idea made up almost entirely of American and European land owners (and numbering about 400 members) pushed this agenda with incredible vigour.

We’re skipping over a lot but unless I want to make this post as long as a short novel, we’ll forge ahead to the Hawaiian constitution of 1887.  It was nicknamed by its opponents as the “bayonet constitution” because King David Kalakaua was threatened with his death should he not sign it.  The new constitution stripped the Monarch of almost all of what remained of his personal powers and established cabinet government.  It also empowered the people to elect members of the House of Nobels who had previously been appointed by the Monarch.  generally speaking, this doesn’t sound so bad but the constitution did a few other things which we would probably look back on as questionable.

Firstly, it increased the value of property required by eligible voters.  This further disenfranchised a number of native Hawaiians.  The constitution also denied voting rights to Asians, some of which had become naturalized subjects of the Hawaiian monarchy.  Americans and Europeans were also given voting rights on the island Nation without requiring citizenship.

After King David’s death, his sister Lili?uokalani ascended the throne and received petitions from 2/3rds of her native Hawaiian subjects in support of drafting a new constitution restoring some power to the Monarchy and stripping American and European residents of the suffrage they had obtained after the signing of the bayonet constitution.  When it was found that she intended to draft and declare the new constitution unilaterally, a group of American and European residents formed a “committee of safety” which would shortly after, seek to remove the Queen from her office and annex Hawaii to the United States.

Rebellion could be felt in the air and a quick and bloodless coup was sought by the American and Europeans on the Island.  To force the issue, they approached the Queen with a threat of force and backed that up with a sympathetic United States Government Diplomat, John L. Stevens.  Stevens ordered the landing of 162 uniformed marines from the USS Boston.  The marines marched to Arion Hall directly across the road from the Queen’s Iolani Palace.  This show of force and demands by the Committee of Safety resulted in the Queen surrendering to “superior forces of the United States of America” in an effort to avoid any bloodshed on the Island.

Not only is it important to note that Stevens did not have the authority to order such a landing as the basis for landing troops was spurious at best, but also that Queen Lili?uokalani surrendered not to annexationists on the Island, but to “superior forces of the United States of America” that had landed.  In her statement, she not only protested the action carried out against the constitutional government but made clear that it was not possible without the actions of Stevens who she said declared support for those claiming to have established a provisional government on the Island.

In short, Queen Lili?uokalani never yielded her sovereignty to Americans and Europeans on the Island, but had surrendered to American forces who had landed under an authority that did not Exist.  Presumptively, Stevens recognized the provisional government’s legitimacy on behalf of the US and established Hawaii as a protectorate.  Immediately afterwards, the provisional government sent a delegation to Washington with a treaty of annexation in hand.  No delegation of behalf of the queen was allowed to travel on the steamer they had chartered.  Then American President Benjamin Harrison immediately sent the treaty to the senate for further discussion and ratification.

After President Grover Cleveland was elected, he immediately informed the Senate that talk of annexation was to be halted and he sent a commissioner to the island nation to determine the events that had lead up to the establishment of the Provisional government and the overthrow of the Monarchy.  This resulted in the Blount report.

In his report, James Blount wrote that he could not find a single person in favour of annexation that was eager or even willing to have the issue bought to a popular vote and that U.S. Minister to Hawaii Stevens had landed troops under a false or exaggerated pretext to support anti-royalists.  He had participated in forbidden partisan activities in the capacity of his office which were instrumental in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarch.  The report resulted in Stevens being recalled to the United States in disgrace followed by his nearly immediate forced retirement.

After much investigation, Cleveland sent a message to Congress calling the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy an act of war made on the presumed authority of an American diplomat and without any authority of Congress, the only political body in the United States with the authority to do so.

Lili?uokalani was offered restoration by President Cleveland in exchange for amnesty being granted to the Americans who had been responsible for her overthrow.  She refused outright but the new American Minister to Hawaii eventually persuaded her to accept the terms.  President Cleveland then sent a message to the Hawaiian provisional government’s president, Sanford Dole, ordering him to dissolve the provisional government and restore Queen Lili?uokalani to her throne.  Dole vehemently refused and president Cleveland sent the matter to congress which then authorized the Morgan report.

The Blount report was countered by the Morgan report which found no fault with anyone involved in the overthrow aside from the Queen.  It in fact gave the United States a completely blameless slate and vilified Queen Lili?uokalani.  Morgan was an annexationist and though he was a democrat, sympathized publicly with the republican expansionists at the time.  The Morgan report was so controversial even in its own committee that none of the U.S. Senators who authorized it would sign it for differing reasons.  Indeed, the only signature appearing on the executive summary of the report is that of Morgan himself.

To bring us back to an important legal issue, despite all that had happened, the Queen still had not surrendered her sovereignty to the revolutionaries.  Indeed, the provisional government that had been established had neither the majority support of Hawaiians, nor a legitimate claim to sovereignty over that of the Hawaiian monarchy.

Amid Queen Lili?uokalani’s delay in accepting the terms of her restoration, Cleveland was replaced by pro-annexation President William McKinley in 1897.  Hawaii was annexed to the United States the following year.

When the chance to become a state came up, Hawaiians voted overwhelmingly in favour of becoming a state.  The only other choice offered on the ballot was to remain an American Territory.  A great deal of criticism was levelled at the ballot issue as the question did not include an option of independence.  Even if it had however, there still remains the criticism of no one having properly claimed sovereignty from the Hawaiian monarchy.

The final blow in the case for Hawaii’s illegal overthrow is U.S. Public Law 103-150 signed by President Bill Clinton in 1992.  It is a clear admission that the overthrow was illegal and that the Queen indeed never surrendered her authority to the island nation’s revolutionaries.

You know what though…in the end, it doesn’t seem to matter.  Despite all the evidence of an illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government aided by the United States and the admission of the American government to such a fact, I guess the sentiment seems to be “Hawaii is ours now and that’s that.  We’re not giving it back.”

Practically, Hawaii is the 50th U.S. state.  Legally, I think it’s still an independent nation.