Hawaiian Sovereighnty Seekers Take Over Palace and "Set Up" Government

[Tez3]

The one thing we've been seeing in Europe and the UK is that people want to belong to smaller communities and get away from being part of a huge faceless entity. The problem of course is that you weaker as a small country, I think you already have the answer to that as you can belong to your state but have the protection of being part of the bigger country. In Europe the countries are breaking into ever smaller countries but are joining the European Community.We seem to want to keep or go back to being clans almost! Perhaps it's a reaction to the huge cities of the world and our lack of sense of belonging?
Perhaps too a certain sense of nostalgia for the long ago days when life was perceived as being simpler, less crime ridden and hard? I imagine Hawaiians may feel that ruling themselves was better, I know the Welsh, Scots and Cornish do.

 

[thardey]

The one thing we've been seeing in Europe and the UK is that people want to belong to smaller communities and get away from being part of a huge faceless entity. The problem of course is that you weaker as a small country, I think you already have the answer to that as you can belong to your state but have the protection of being part of the bigger country. In Europe the countries are breaking into ever smaller countries but are joining the European Community.We seem to want to keep or go back to being clans almost! Perhaps it's a reaction to the huge cities of the world and our lack of sense of belonging?
Perhaps too a certain sense of nostalgia for the long ago days when life was perceived as being simpler, less crime ridden and hard? I imagine Hawaiians may feel that ruling themselves was better, I know the Welsh, Scots and Cornish do.

Or it could be higher population densities. With our modern communications and travel options, dividing a state, or country by "area" is not so critical as dividing it by a certain number of people.

 

[punisher73]

Maybe I'm wrong but doesn't a territory petition to become a state and get voted in? So wouldn't Hawaii have ASKED to become a part of the US?

I think they stand as good a chance as Illinois seperating like some want to, or the upper peninsula of Michigan becoming seperate states.

As a side note, anyone know which state has it in their state consitution that they can divide into 5 seperate states?

 

[Bob Hubbard]

From Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii#Overthrow_of_the_Hawaiian_monarchy

Hawaiian kingdom

Main article: Kingdom of Hawaii

During the 1780s and 1790s the chiefs were constantly fighting for power.[12] After a series of battles that ended in 1795 and forced cession of the island of Kauai in 1810, all of the inhabited islands were subjugated under a single ruler who would become known as King Kamehameha the Great. He established the House of Kamehameha, a dynasty that ruled over the kingdom until 1872.

The death of the bachelor King Kamehameha V—who did not name an heir—resulted in the popular election of Lunalilo over Kalakaua (Kalākaua). After Lunalilo’s death, in a hotly contested and allegedly fraudulent election by the legislature in 1874 between Kalakaua and Emma (which led to riots and the landing of U.S. and British troops to keep the peace), governance was passed on to the House of Kalākaua.

In 1887, under the influence of Walter M. Gibson, a group of primarily American and European businessmen, including kingdom subjects and members of the Hawaiian government forced Kalākaua to sign the derisively nicknamed "Bayonet Constitution" which stripped the king of administrative authority, eliminated voting rights for Asians and set minimum income and property requirements for American, European and native Hawaiian voters, essentially limiting the electorate to wealthy elite Americans, Europeans and native Hawaiians. King Kalakaua reigned until his death in 1891. His sister, Liliuokalani (Liliʻuokalani), succeeded him to the throne and ruled until her overthrow in 1893.



Overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy
Main article: Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom

In 1893, Queen Liliuokalani announced plans to establish a new constitution that would have replaced the so-called "Bayonet Constitution" that was established during the reign of King Kalakaua by American and European residents under threat of violence. The new constitution would have restored much power to the monarchy, but this was opposed by (mainly foreign) business elites. On January 14, 1893, a group of American and Europeans formed a Committee of Safety in opposition to the Queen, and seized control of government. United States Government Minister John L. Stevens, responding to a request from the Committee of Safety expressing concern about possible violence directed against American citizens, summoned a company of uniformed U.S. Marines to come ashore to enforce neutrality. As one historian noted, the presence of these troops effectively made it impossible for the monarchy to protect itself.[14]

The overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani was successful and the monarchy ended in January 1893. It was replaced by a Provisional Government composed of members of the Committee of Safety. There was much controversy in the following years as the queen tried to regain her throne. The administration of President Grover Cleveland commissioned the Blount Report, which concluded that the overthrow of Liliʻuokalani was illegal. The U.S. Government first demanded that Queen Liliʻuokalani be reinstated, but the Provisional Government refused. Congress responded to Cleveland's referral with another investigation, and submitted the Morgan Report by the U.S. Senate on February 26, 1894, which found all parties (including Minister Stevens) with the exception of the queen "not guilty" from any responsibility for the overthrow.[15] The accuracy and impartiality of both the Blount and Morgan reports has been questioned by partisans on both sides of the historical debate over the events of 1893.[16][17][18][19]

In 1993, a joint Apology Resolution regarding the overthrow was passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton, apologizing for the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom.[20]




Republic of Hawaii

Main article: Republic of Hawaii

The Republic of Hawaii was the formal name of Hawaii from 1894 to 1898 when it was run as a republic. The republic period occurred between the administration of the Provisional Government of Hawaii which ended on July 4, 1894 and the adoption of the Newlands Resolution in Congress in which the Republic was annexed to the United States and became the Territory of Hawaii on July 7, 1898.



U.S. Territory

Main article: Territory of Hawaii

When William McKinley won the presidential election in November of 1896, the question of Hawaii’s annexation to the U.S. was again opened. The previous president, Grover Cleveland, was a friend of Queen Liliuokalani. He had remained opposed to annexation until the end of his term, but McKinley was open to persuasion by U.S. expansionists and by annexationists from Hawaii. He agreed to meet with a committee of annexationists from Hawaii, Lorrin Thurston, Francis Hatch and William Kinney. After negotiations, in June of 1897, McKinley agreed to a treaty of annexation with these representatives of the Republic of Hawaii.[21] The president then submitted the treaty to the U.S. Senate for approval.

Despite some opposition in the islands, the Newlands Resolution was passed by the House June 15, 1898, by a vote of 209 to 91, and by the Senate on July 6, 1898, by a vote of 42 to 21, annexing Hawaii as a U.S. territory. Its legality continues to be questioned because it was a United States Government resolution, not a treaty of cession or conquest as is required by international law. Both houses of the American Congress carried the measure with two-thirds majorities.

In 1900, Hawaii was granted self-governance and retained ʻIolani Palace as the territorial capitol building. Though several attempts were made to achieve statehood, Hawaii remained a territory for sixty years. Plantation owners, such as the Big Five, found territorial status convenient, enabling them to continue importing cheap foreign labor; such immigration was prohibited in various states of the U.S.

The power of the plantation owners was finally broken by activist descendants of original immigrant laborers. Because they were born in a U.S. territory, they were legal U.S. citizens. Expecting to gain full voting rights, they actively campaigned for statehood for the Hawaiian Islands.




U.S. Statehood

In March 1959, both houses of Congress passed the Hawaii Admission Act and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into law. (The act excluded Palmyra Atoll, part of the Kingdom and Territory of Hawaii, from the new state.) On June 27 of that year, a referendum was held asking residents of Hawaii to vote on accepting the statehood bill. Hawaii voted at a ratio of 17 to 1 to accept. There has been criticism, however, of the Statehood plebiscite, because the only choices were to accept the Act or to remain a territory, without addressing the issues of legality surrounding the overthrow.[22][23][24] Despite the criticism, the United Nations decolonization committee later removed Hawaii from the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories.

After statehood, Hawaii quickly became a modern state with a construction boom and rapidly growing economy. The Hawaii Republican Party, which was strongly supported by the plantation owners, was voted out of office. In its place, the Democratic Party of Hawaii dominated state politics for forty years.

In recent decades, the state government has implemented programs to promote Hawaiian culture. The Hawaii State Constitutional Convention of 1978 incorporated as state constitutional law specific programs such as the creation of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to promote the indigenous Hawaiian language and culture.

 

[Rich Parsons]

http://www.twincities.com/national/ci_9109968?source=email



What rationale does the US claim for occupying and imperialising this sovereign nation? How much traction do these Hawaiian separatist groups actually have? Will the US ever lose its 50th state?

John,

Would you go home, (* Europe *) and return the land to the locals before the Europeans arrived?

Traction is one thing, but if they were to leave, and the US Navy pulled out, someone else could move in. I have a feeling that this would not go well. The PI that the US "took" form the Spanish in our little fight over Cuba in the Spanish American War, was determined to let them go and would have happened sooner but certain things got in the way. When they were ready WWII showed up and many US investors were looking to go back in. The same was true in Hawai'i. The US did grant freedom to the PI or they took it for themselves. They celebrate the same day of independence. July Fourth. It was chosen on purpose.

Guam and Puerto Rico and other territories get benefits for being associated with the US. Tax breaks and investments and such.