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Hawaii Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand (Essay by Constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, as printed In the Congressional Record of June 14, 15, and 16 of 2005 by unanimous consent, by request of Senator Kyl)


Bruce Fein, an attorney specializing in Constitutional law, wrote a booklet published June 1, 2005 by the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii. That booklet is entitled "Hawaii Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand." It can be downloaded in pdf format here:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi5/bigfiles3/AkakaHawaiiDividedFeinJune2005.pdf

Mr. Fein's essay is of special interest to scholars because of his analysis of the apology resolution of 1993 as well as the provisions of the Akaka bill.

Senator Kyl (R, AZ) obtained unanimous consent to print Mr. Fein's essay in the Congressional Record in three installments on three consecutive days: June 14, 15, and 16 of 2005. Each installment was introduced by brief remarks by Senator Kyl. The relevant portions of the Congressional Record are shown below as copied directly from the Library of Congress website. The pdf file offered above includes reference citations and a cover page that were not included in the Congressional Record.

Mr. Fein previously published three important articles opposing the Akaka bill, which were all printed in the Congressional Record on March 17, 2005. That material can be found at:
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/AkakaFeinCongRec031705.html

Here are the remarks by Senator Kyl and the three installments of "Hawaii Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand" as published in the Congressional Record on June 14, 15, 16 of 2005.


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AGAINST RACE-BASED GOVERNMENT IN HAWAII -- (Senate - June 14, 2005)

[Page: S6471]

---

   Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to ask unanimous consent that the following analysis of the 1993 Hawaii apology resolution, prepared by constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, be entered into the RECORD following my present remarks.

   To be sure, I do not think that the nature of the events that led to the end of the Kamehameha monarchy is relevant to the question whether we should establish a race-based government in Hawaii today. I believe that America is a good and great Nation, and that all Americans should be proud to be a part of it. The United States does not deserve to have its government carved up along racial lines.

   Nevertheless, proponents of racially separate government in Hawaii have advanced their arguments for S. 147, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, in terms of history. It is thus instructive to take a close look at that history.

[The Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Jun. 1, 2005]

   Hawaii Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand--An Analysis of the Apology Resolution

(By Bruce Fein)

   THE 1993 APOLOGY RESOLUTION IS RIDDLED WITH FALSEHOODS AND MISCHARACTERIZATIONS

   The Akaka Bill originated with the 1993 Apology Resolution (S.J. Res. 19) which passed Congress in 1993. Virtually every paragraph is false or misleading.

   The opening paragraph declares its purpose as to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the January 17, 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii and to offer an apology to ``Native Hawaiians'' on behalf of the United States for the event that ushered in a republican form of government and popular sovereignty, in lieu of monarchy. The apology wrongly insinuates that the overthrown 1893 government was for Native Hawaiians alone; and, that they suffered unique injuries because of the substitution of republicanism for monarchy. There never had been a race-based government since the formation of the kingdom of Hawaii in 1810, and only trivial racial distinctions in the law (but for discrimination against Japanese and Chinese immigrants). [Footnote: Minor exceptions include jury trials, membership in the nobility, and land distribution. In addition, the 1864 Constitution mandated that if the monarch died or abdicated without naming a successor, the legislature should elect a native Ali`i (Chief) to the throne.] Native Hawaiians served side-by-side with non-Native Hawaiians in the Cabinet and legislature. The 1893 overthrow did not disturb even a square inch of land owned by Native Hawaiians. If the overthrow justified an apology, it should have been equally to Native Hawaiians and non-Native Hawaiians. Both were treated virtually the same under the law by the ousted Queen Liliuokalani. Moreover, it seems preposterous to apologize for deposing a monarch to move towards a republican form of government based on the consent of the governed.

   Paragraph two notes that Native Hawaiians lived in a highly organized, self sufficient, subsistent social system based on communal land tenure with a sophisticated language and culture when the first Europeans arrived in 1778. It errantly insinuates that Native Hawaiians are not permitted under the United States Constitution to practice their ancient culture. They may do so every bit as much as the Amish or other groups. They may own land collectively as joint tenants. The paragraph also misleads by omitting the facts that Hawaiian Kings, not Europeans, abolished communal land tenure and religious taboos (kapu) by decree. [See Appendix page 3 paragraphs 2, 3, 4]

   Paragraph three notes that a unified monarchical government of the Hawaiian Islands was established in 1810 under Kamehameha I, the first King of Hawaii. It neglects to mention that the King established the government by conquest and force of arms in contrast to the bloodless overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani. In other words, if King Kamehameha's government was legitimate, then so was the successfu1l 1893 overthrow. [See Appendix page 2 paragraph 1]

   Paragraph four notes that from 1826 until 1893, the United States recognized the Kingdom of Hawaii as an independent nation with which it concluded a series of treaties and conventions. But the paragraph neglects to note that the United States extended recognition to the government that replaced Queen Liliuokalani in 1893. It treated both governments as equally legitimate under international law, as did other relations.

   Paragraph five notes the more than 100 missionaries sent by the Congregational Church to the Kingdom of Hawaii between 1820 and 1850. But the missionaries did not cause mischief. They brought education, medicine, and civilization to Native Hawaiians for which no apology is due. [See Appendix page 2 paragraphs 2, 3]

   Paragraph six falsely accuses United States Minister John L. Stevens as conspiring with non-Native Hawaiians to overthrow the indigenous and lawful Government of Hawaii. The Government, as previously explained, was not ``indigenous,'' but included non-Native Hawaiians. The latter were treated identically with Native Hawaiians and shared fully in the society and governance of the kingdom. Moreover, Minister Stevens, as a meticulous Senate Foreign Relations Committee report (the ``Morgan'' report) established, remained steadfastly neutral between the contesting political forces in Hawaii in 1893. [See Appendix page 4 paragraph 1]

   Paragraph seven falsely indicts Minister Stevens and naval representatives of aiding and abetting the 1893 overthrow by invading the Kingdom of Hawaii and positioning themselves near the Hawaiian Government buildings and the Iolani Palace to intimidate Queen Liliuokalani and her Government. The ``Morgan'' report convincingly discredits that indictment. It demonstrated that United States forces were deployed solely to protect American citizens and property. [See Appendix page 4 paragraph 1]

   Paragraph eight falsely insinuates that the overthrow of the Queen was supported only by American and European sugar planters, descendants of missionaries, and financiers. The Queen was abandoned by the majority of Hawaiian residents, including Native Hawaiians, because of her squalid plan to alter the constitution by illegal means to make the government more monarchical and less democratic. At best, the Queen was able to rally but a feeble resistance to defend her anti-constitutional plans. A Provisional Government was readily established and maintained without the threat or use of overwhelming force, in contrast to the force Kamehameha brandished to establish the Kingdom of Hawaii. [See Appendix page 1 paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

   Paragraph nine falsely asserts that the extension of diplomatic recognition to the Provisional Government by United States Minister Stevens without the consent of the Native Hawaiian people or the lawful Government of Hawaii violated treaties and international law. The international community in general extended diplomatic recognition to the Provisional Government. That was consistent with international law, which acknowledges the right to overthrow a tyrannical government. The Provisional Government received the consent of Native Hawaiians every bit as much if not more than did King Kamehameha I in establishing the Kingdom of Hawaii by force in 1810. In addition, international law does not require the consent of an overthrown government before extending diplomatic recognition to its successor. Thus, the Dutch recognized the United States of America without the consent of Great Britain whose colonial regime had been overthrown. Similarly, the United States extended diplomatic recognition to the new government regime in the Philippines in 1986 headed by Cory Aquino without the consent of Ferdinand Marcos. Finally, sovereignty in Hawaii at the time of the 1893 overthrow resided in the Monarch, not the people. Native Hawaiian and non-Native Hawaiians alike possessed no legal right to withhold a transfer of sovereignty from Queen Liliuokalani to the Provisional Government. The Queen's own statement, reprinted in the Apology Resolution, confirms that sovereignty rested with the monarch, not the people. She neither asked nor received popular consent for yielding sovereignty to the United States. In any event, Native Hawaiians enjoyed more popular sovereignty than did non-Native Hawaiians. Accordingly, if the diplomatic recognition was wrong, both groups were equally wronged.

   Paragraph ten falsely suggests that Queen Liliuokalani yielded her power to avoid bloodshed. She did so because her anti-constitutional plans had provoked popular anger or antagonism. The Queen forfeited the legitimacy necessary to sustain power. Even Cabinet members she had appointed abandoned her and advised surrender. [See Appendix page 1 paragraph 5]

   The Queen's statement itself is cynical and false in many respects. She condemns the Provisional Government for acts done against the Constitution, whereas she had provoked her overthrow by embracing anti-constitutional plans for a more monarchical and less democratic government. The Queen falsely asserts that Minister Stevens had declared that United States troops would support the Provisional Government. The Minister insisted on strict United States military neutrality between contending parties. And the Queen audaciously insists that the United States should reinstall her to reign as an anti-democratic Monarch in lieu of a step towards a republican form of government, akin to Slobodan Milosevic's requesting the United States to restore him to power in Serbia after his replacement by a democratic dispensation. [See Appendix page 4 paragraph 2, 3]

   Paragraph ten falsely insists that the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani would have

[Page: S6472]
failed for lack of arms and popular support but for the active support and intervention by the United States. The United States provided no arms to the insurgents. The United States did not encourage Hawaiians to join the insurrection. The United States remained strictly neutral throughout the time period and events that precipitated the end of Monarchy and the beginning of a republic in Hawaii. [See Appendix page 4 paragraph 2]

   Paragraph eleven falsely insinuates that Minister Stevens proclaimed Hawaii to be a protectorate of the United States on February 1, 1893 as a coercive action. Minister Stevens had raised the American flag over government buildings at the request of the Provisional Government to deter threats to lives and property. The protectorate was requested, not imposed. The Harrison administration revoked the protectorate soon after, which refutes the Apology Resolution's assumption that the United States government conspired to annex Hawaii.

   Paragraph twelve neglects to underscore that Democrat Congressman James Blount on behalf of Democrat President Grover Cleveland conducted an investigation of events that transpired under a Republican administration which both hoped to discredit for partisan political purposes. Blount's findings of abuse of diplomatic and military authority and United States responsibility for the overthrow of the Queen were meticulously discredited by the Morgan report the following year. [See Appendix page 4 paragraph 3]

   Paragraph thirteen fails to note that the actions against the Minister and military commander were inspired by the partisan politics of Democrats casting aspersion on the predecessor Republican administration of Benjamin Harrison. [See Appendix page 4 paragraph 1]

   Paragraph fourteen misleads by omitting President Grover Cleveland's partisan motivation for attacking the policies of his predecessor, President Benjamin Harrison, and the Morgan report that disproved President Cleveland's tenacious chronicling and characterizations of Queen Liliuokalani's overthrow. To trust in the impartiality of Democrat Cleveland to evaluate the policies and actions of Republican Harrison would be like trusting Democrat President William Jefferson Clinton to evaluate evenhandedly the presidency of Republican George H. W. Bush. [See Appendix page 4 paragraph 3]

   Paragraph fifteen neglects that President Cleveland urged a restoration of the Hawaiian monarchy for partisan political reasons to discredit the Harrison administration and the Republican Party. [See Appendix page 4 paragraph 3]

   Paragraph sixteen notes that the Provisional Government protested President Cleveland's celebration of the Hawaiian monarchy and remained in power. Both actions were morally and legally impeccable, and do not justify an apology.

   Paragraph seventeen notes the hearings of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee into the 1893 overthrow; the Provisional Government's defense of Minister Stevens; and its recommendation of annexation. Neither the overthrow, nor Minister Stevens' actions, nor the Provisional Government's annexation recommendation was reproachable or justifies an apology. [See Appendix page 4 paragraphs 2, 3]

   Paragraph eighteen notes that a treaty of annexation failed to command a two-thirds Senate majority, an event that does not justify an apology from the United States. The paragraph also falsely declares that the Provisional Government somehow duped the Committee over the role of the United States in the 1893 overthrow, as though the Senators could not think and evaluate for themselves. Finally, the paragraph wrongly condemns the overthrow as ``illegal.'' It was no more illegal in the eyes of domestic or international law than the overthrow of the British government in America by the United States in 1776. [See Appendix page 4 paragraphs 2,3]

   Paragraph nineteen notes that the Provisional Government proclaimed itself the Republic of Hawaii on July 4, 1894. The proclamation was legally and otherwise correct. The declaration did not justify an apology by the United States. [See appendix page 4 paragraph 2,3]

   Paragraph twenty declares that on January 24, 1895, the Queen while imprisoned was forced by the Republic of Hawaii to abdicate her throne. The forced abdication was thoroughly defensible. The Queen had not accepted the new dispensation after her overthrow. Thus, she was the equivalent of a Fifth Columnist to the legitimate government of Hawaii until abdication was forthcoming.

   Paragraph twenty-one notes that in 1896, President William McKinley replaced Grover Cleveland. That democratic event provided no excuse for an apology.

   Paragraph twenty-two notes that on July 7, 1898, in the wake of the Spanish-American War, President McKinley signed the Newlands Joint Resolution that provided for the annexation of Hawaii. The annexation was perfectly legal and enlightened. It was no justification for an apology.

   Paragraph twenty-three notes that the Newlands Resolution occasioned the cession of sovereignty over the Hawaiian Islands to the United States. That is no cause for an apology. The same occurred in 1845 when Texas was annexed to the United States by joint resolution. The cession in both cases was with the consent of the lawful governments of Hawaii and Texas, respectively.

   Paragraph twenty-four notes that the cession included a transfer of crown, government, and public lands without the consent of or compensation to the Native Hawaiian people of Hawaii or their sovereign government. But there as no race-based Native Hawaiian government, either then or previously. The government was for Native Hawaiians and non-Native Hawaiians alike. Further, the Newlands Resolution specified that the revenues of the ceded lands generally ``shall be used solely for the benefit of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands for educational and other public purposes.'' Compensation was not paid because nothing was taken from the inhabitants of Hawaii. Moreover, the United States assumed over 3.8 million dollars of Hawaii's public debt, largely incurred under the monarchy, after annexation. That debt burden amounts to twice the market value of the land the United States lawfully inherited [See Appendix page 3 paragraph 4]

   Paragraph twenty-five notes that Congress ratified the annexation and cession of Hawaii, which required no apology.

   Paragraph twenty-six notes that treaties between Hawaii and foreign nations were replaced by treaties between the United States and foreign nations, which is customary under international law when one sovereign replaces another. For example, Russia replaced the Soviet Union in its international treaty obligations following the disintegration of the USSR.

   Paragraph twenty-seven notes that the Newlands Resolution effected the transaction between the Republic of Hawaii and the United States Government, an observation that required no apology.

   Paragraph twenty-eight misleads by declaring that Native Hawaiians ``never directly relinquished their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people over their national lands to the United States, either through their monarchy or through a plebiscite or referendum.'' But sovereignty in the Kingdom of Hawaii resided in the monarch, not in the people. Further, the Kingdom was a government for all the inhabitants of Hawaii, not only for Native Hawaiians. Non-Native Hawaiians enjoyed a much inherent sovereignty as Native Hawaiians, and enjoyed an equal claim to national lands. Further, Native Hawaiians overwhelmingly voted for statehood in 1959, which constituted a virtual referendum on United States sovereignty. Finally, neither domestic nor international law recognizes a right to a plebiscite before a transfer of sovereignty. In America, for example, sovereignty was transferred from Great Britain to the United States without a plebiscite or the consent of the British-controlled colonial governments. The Akaka Bill's proponents themselves do not advocate a plebiscite to grant sovereignty to the Native Hawaiian people. [See Appendix page 3 paragraphs 2,3,4

   Paragraph twenty-nine notes that on April 30, 1900, President McKinley signed the Organic Act that provided a government for the territory of Hawaii. The Act created a representative system of government, a great credit to the United States and far superior to what the residents of Hawaii had previously enjoyed under the Monarchy. [See Appendix page 5 paragraph 1]

   Paragraph thirty notes that on August 21, 1959, Hawaii became the 50th State of the United States. But it omits that 94 percent of voters in a plebiscite supported statehood, including an overwhelming majority of Native Hawaiians. In other words, in 1959 Native Hawaiians freely chose the sovereignty of the United States. The elections could have been boycotted if independence were desired. [See, appendix page 5 paragraph 2]

   Paragraph thirty-one declares that the health and well-being of Native Hawaiians is intrinsically tied to their deep feelings and attachment to land. But the same can be said of every racial, ethnic, religious, or cultural group. Scarlet O'Hara in Gone with the Wind was passionately tied to Tara. Further, the observation does not deny that the United States Constitution scrupulously protects the rights of Native Hawaiians to honor their feelings and attachments to land short of theft or trespass.

   Paragraph thirty-two counterfactually declares that long-range economic and social changes in Hawaii over the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries have been devastating to the population and to the health and well-being of the Hawaiian people. The Native Hawaiian population declined throughout the years of the Kingdom, but, since annexation in 1898, the native population has achieved steady growth. Senator Daniel Inouye himself celebrated the health and prosperity of Hawaiians on the thirty-fifth anniversary of statehood in 1994: ``Hawaii remains one of the greatest examples of multiethnic society living in relative peace.'' Indeed, no fair-minded observer would maintain that Native Hawaiians would have been more prosperous, free, and culturally advanced if foreigners had never appeared in Hawaii and its people remained isolated from the progress of knowledge. The Polynesian nation of Tonga, which had a society and economy striking similar to Hawaii's in the 1840s, chose to preserve its Polynesian customs over progress. Today, Hawaii boasts a per capita income twenty times that of Tonga. Moreover, Native Hawaiians would probably have been swallowed up in the wave of Japanese colonialism had they not become citizens of the United States along with non-Native Hawaiians after annexation. [See Appendix page 5 paragraph 2]

   Paragraph thirty-three misleads by failing to underscore that the United States Constitution fully protects the determination of

[Page: S6473]
Native Hawaiians to practice and to pass on to future generations their cultural identity. The sole element of cultural identity that the United States cannot and will not tolerate is racial discrimination, whether practiced by whites against blacks during Jim Crow or by Native Hawaiians against non-Native Hawaiians today.

   Paragraph thirty-four outlandishly asserts that the Apology Resolution is necessary to promote ``racial harmony and cultural understanding.'' Indeed, the Resolution has yielded the opposite by giving birth to the race-based Akaka Bill. As Senator Inouye acknowledged in 1994, Hawaii stands as a shining example of racial harmony and the success of America's legendary ``melting pot.'' [See Appendix page 5 paragraph 2]

   Paragraph thirty-five notes an apology by the President of the United Church of Christ for the denomination's alleged complicity in the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. But not a crumb of evidence in the Blount report or the Morgan report or Queen Liliuokalani's autobiography substantiates the Church's complicity. Further, the overthrow was as legal as was King Kamehameha's creation of the Kingdom by conquest in 1810 or the overthrow of the British colonial government in America by the United States. Finally, the paragraph is silent on the substance of the ``process of reconciliation'' between the Church and Native Hawaiians. [See Appendix page 2 paragraphs 1, 2, 3]

   Paragraph thirty-six repeats the false indictment of the overthrow of the Kingdom as ``illegal.'' Congress absurdly expresses its ``deep regret'' to the Native Hawaiian people for bringing them unprecedented prosperity and freedom. As noted above, even Senator Inouye in 1994 conceded the spectacular Hawaiian success story after annexation and statehood. And since the State of Hawaii and Native Hawaiians have never been estranged--Native Hawaiians have invariably enjoyed equal or preferential rights under law--the idea of a need for reconciliation voiced in the paragraph is nonsense on stilts. [See Appendix page 2 paragraph 1]

   Section 1, paragraph (1) of the Apology Resolution falsely characterizes the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii as illegal, and falsely insinuates that sovereignty under the Kingdom rested with the Native Hawaiian people to the exclusion of non-Native Hawaiians. As elaborated above, sovereignty rested with the Monarch; and, Native Hawaiians and non-Native Hawaiians were equal in the eyes of the law and popular sovereignty.

   Section 1, paragraph (2) ridiculously commends reconciliation where none is needed between the State of Hawaii and the United Church of Christ and Native Hawaiians. [See Appendix page 2 paragraphs 2, 3]

   Section 1, paragraph (3) outlandishly apologizes to Native Hawaiians for bringing them the fruits of democracy and free enterprise. It also falsely suggests that Native Hawaiians to the exclusion of non-Natives enjoyed a right to self-determination when in fact all resident citizens of Hawaii were equal under the law.

   Section 1, paragraphs (4) and (5) preposterously assert a need for reconciliation between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people when there has never been an estrangement. Indeed, a stunning majority of Native Hawaiians voters supported statehood in 1959 in a plebiscite. [See Appendix page 4 paragraph 3]

END

AGAINST RACE-BASED GOVERNMENT IN HAWAII, PART II -- (Senate - June 15, 2005)

[Page: S6645]

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   Mr. KYL. Mr. President, I rise today to ask unanimous consent that the following analysis of S. 147, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, prepared by constitutional scholar Bruce Fein, be entered into the RECORD following my present remarks.

   Mr. Fein's analysis of the act builds on his analysis of the 1993 apology resolution, which was printed in the RECORD yesterday. Mr. Fein's present analysis ably demonstrates why the Native Hawaiian Government Act is at war with the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of rights and its limits on governmental power. The bill is particularly offensive to the fundamental principle of equal protection of the laws. I commend Mr. Fein's analysis of the act to my colleagues.

   There being no objection, the material ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:

[From the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii June 1, 2005]
(By Bruce Fein)

   Hawaii Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand--An Analysis of the Akaka Bill

   The Akaka Bill pivots generally on the same falsehoods and mischaracterizations as the Apology. It further celebrates a race-based government entity in flagrant violation of the non-discrimination mandates of the Fifth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments.

   Section 1 misleads by naming the Act the ``Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005.'' As amplified above, there has never been a government in Hawaii for Native Hawaiians alone since Kamehameha established the Kingdom in 1810. Something that has never been cannot be reorganized.

   Section 2 makes twenty-three findings that are either false or misleading.

   Finding (1) asserts that Congress enjoys constitutional authority to address the conditions of the indigenous, native people of the United States. But the finding fails to identify the constitutional source of that power, or how it differs from the power of Congress to address the conditions of every American citizen. Congress does not find that Native Hawaiians were ever subjugated or victimized by racial discrimination or prevented from maintaining and celebrating a unique culture. Moreover, the United States Supreme Court explicitly repudiated congressional power to arbitrarily designate a body of people as an Indian tribe in United States v. Sandoval 231 U.S. 28, 45 (1913). As Alice Thurston unequivocally stated arguing for Interior Secretary Babbitt in Connecticut v. Babbitt 228 F.3d, 82 (2nd Cir. 2000) ``When the Department of the Interior recognizes a tribe, it is not saying, `You are now a tribe.' It is saying, `We recognize that your sovereignty exists.' We don't create tribes out of thin air.'' [Footnote: Jeff Benedict, Without Reservation (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2000) 349.]

   Finding (2) asserts that Native Hawaiians are indigenous, native people of the United States. The finding is dubious. Native Hawaiians probably migrated to the Islands from other lands and remained as interlopers.

   Finding (3) falsely asserts that the United States ``has a special political and legal responsibility to promote the welfare of the native people of the United States, including Native Hawaiians.'' No such responsibility is imposed by the Constitution or laws of the United States. No decision of the United States Supreme Court has ever recognized such a responsibility. Indeed, Congress would be acting constitutionally if it abolished all tribal sovereignty that it has extended by unilateral legislation.

   Finding (4) recites various treaties between the Kingdom of Hawaii and the United States from 1826 to 1893. The finding is as irrelevant to the proposed legislation as the heliocentric theory of the universe.

   Finding (5) falsely declares that the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (HHCA) set aside approximately 203,500 acres of land to address the conditions of Native Hawaiians in the then federal territory. In fact, the HHCA established a homesteading program for only a small segment of a racially defined class of Hawaii's citizens. Its intended beneficiaries were not and are not now ``Native Hawaiians'' as defined in the Akaka bill (i.e., those with any degree of Hawaiian ancestry, no matter how attenuated), but exclusively those with 50 percent or more Hawaiian ``blood''--a limitation which still applies with some exceptions for children of homesteaders who may inherit a homestead lease if the child has at least 25 percent Hawaiian ``blood.''

   The HHCA was enacted by Congress in 1921 based on stereotyping of ``native Hawaiians'' (50% blood quantum) as characteristic of ``peoples raised under a communist or feudal system'' needing to ``be protected against their own thriftlessness''. The racism of Plessy v. Ferguson, 163 US 537, (1896) was then in its heyday. If that derogatory stereotyping were ever a legitimate basis for Federal legislation, Adarand Constructors v. Pena, 515 U.S. 200 (1995) and a simple regard for the truth deprive it of any validity today.

   Finding (6) asserts that the land set aside assists Native Hawaiians in maintaining distinct race-based settlements, an illicit constitutional objective under Buchanan and indistinguishable in principle from South Africa's execrated Bantustans.

   Finding (7) notes that approximately 6,800 Native Hawaiian families reside on the set aside Home Lands and an additional 18,000 are on the race-based waiting list. These racial preferences in housing are not remedial. They do not rest on proof of past discrimination (which does not exist). The preferences are thus flagrantly unconstitutional. See Richmond v. J.A. Croson Co., 488 U.S. 469 (1989); Adarand Constructors, supra.

   Finding (8) notes that the statehood compact included a ceded lands trust for five purposes, one of which is the betterment of Native Hawaiians. As elaborated above, the 20 percent racial set aside enacted in the 1978 statue violates the general color-blindness mandate of the Constitution.

   Finding (9) asserts that Native Hawaiians have continuously sought access to the ceded lands to establish and maintain native settlements and distinct native communities throughout the State. Those objectives are constitutionally indistinguishable from the objectives of whites during the ugly decades of Jim Crow to promote an exclusive white culture exemplified in Gone with the Wind or The Invisible Man. The United States Constitution protects all cultures, except for those rooted in racial discrimination or hierarchies.

   Finding (10) asserts that the Home Lands and other ceded lands are instrumental in the ability of the Native Hawaiian community to celebrate Native Hawaiian culture and to survive. That finding is generally false. The United States Constitution fastidiously safeguards Native Hawaiians like all other groups in their cultural distinctiveness or otherwise. There is but one exception. A culture that demands racial discrimination against outsiders is unconstitutional and is not worth preserving. Further, as Senator Inouye himself has proclaimed, Native Hawaiians and other citizens are thriving in harmony as a model for other racially diverse communities under the banner of the United States Constitution.

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   Finding (11) asserts that Native Hawaiians continue to maintain other distinctively native areas in Hawaii. Racial discrimination in housing, however, is illegal under the Fair Housing Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1871, and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment if state action is implicated.

   Finding (12) notes the enactment of the Apology Resolution, which is riddled with falsehoods and mis char act er i za tions as amplified above.

   Finding (13) repeats falsehoods in the Apology Resolution. Contrary to its assertions, the Monarchy was overthrown without the collusion of the United States or its agents; the Native Hawaiian people enjoyed no more inherent sovereignty under the kingdom than did non-Native Hawaiians; in any event, sovereignty at the time of the overthrow rested with Queen Lili ou ka lani, not the people; the public lands of Hawaii belonged no more to Native Hawaiians than to non-Native Hawaiians; and, there was never a legal or moral obligation of the United States or the Provisional Government after the overthrow to obtain the consent of Native Hawaiians to receive control over government or crown lands. No Native Hawaiian lost a square inch of land by the overthrow.

   Finding (14) repeats the Apology Resolution's nonsense of a need to reconcile with Native Hawaiians when there has never been an estrangement, as testified to by the 1994 remarks of Senator Inouye.

   Finding (15) corroborates the obvious: namely, that the United States Constitution fully protects Native Hawaiians in celebrating their culture, just as it does the Amish or any other group desiring to depart from the mainstream.

   Findings (16), (17), and (18) similarly corroborates that the United States Constitution guarantees religious or cultural freedom to Native Hawaiians as it does for any other distinctive group. On the other hand, the finding falsely asserts that Native Hawaiians enjoy a right to self-determination, i.e., a right to establish an independent race-based nation or sovereignty. The Civil War definitively established that no individual or group in the United States enjoys a right to secede from the Union, including Native American Indian tribes.

   Finding (19) falsely asserts that Native Hawaiians enjoy an ``inherent right'' to reorganize a Native Hawaiian governing entity to honor their right to self-determination. The Constitution denies such a right of self-determination. A Native Hawaiian's lawsuit to enforce such a right would be dismissed as frivolous. Further, there has never been a race-based Native Hawaiian governing entity. An attempt to reorganize something that never existed would be an exercise in futility, or folly, or both.

   Finding (20) falsely insinuates that Congress is saddled with a greater responsibility for the welfare of Native Hawaiians than for non-Native Hawaiians. The Constitution imposes an equal responsibility on Congress. Race-based distinctions in the exercise of congressional power are flagrantly unconstitutional. See Adarand Constructors, supra.

   Finding (21) repeats the false insinuation that the United States is permitted under the Constitution to create a racial quota in the administration of public lands, contrary to Adarand Constructors, supra.

   Finding (22) also brims with falsehoods. Subsection (A) falsely asserts that sovereignty in the Hawaiian Islands rested with aboriginal peoples that pre-dated Native Hawaiians, i.e. that the aboriginals were practicing and preaching government by the consent of the governed long before Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence. But there is not a crumb of evidence anywhere in the world that any aboriginals believed in popular sovereignty, no more so than King Kamehameha I who founded the Kingdom of Hawaii by force, not by plebiscite.

   Subsection (B) falsely insinuates that Native Hawaiians as opposed to non-Native Hawaiians enjoyed sovereignty or possessed sovereign lands. The two were uniformly equal under the law. In any event, sovereignty until the 1893 overthrow rested with the Monarch. Sovereign lands were employed equally for the benefit of Native Hawaiians and non-Native Hawaiians. [See Appendix page 3 paragraphs 3, 4]

   Subsection (C) falsely asserts that the United States extends services to Native Hawaiians because of their unique status as an indigenous, native people. The services are extended because Native Hawaiians are United States citizens and entitled to the equal protection of the laws. The subsection also falsely insinuates that Hawaii previously featured a race-based government.

   Subsection (D) falsely asserts a special trust relationship of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians with the United States arising out of their status as aboriginal, indigenous, native people of the United States. The United States has accorded American Indians and Alaska Natives a trust relation in recognition of existing sovereign entities and a past history of oppression and subjugation. The trust relationship, however, is voluntary and could be ended unilaterally by Congress at any time. Native Hawaiians, in contrast, have never featured a race-based government entity. They have never suffered discrimination. They voted overwhelmingly for statehood. And they have flourished since annexation in 1898, as Senator Inouye confirms. If Native Hawaiians alleged a constitutional right to a trust relationship, they would be laughed out of court.

   Finding (23) falsely insinuates that a majority of Hawaiians support the Akaka Bill based on politically correct stances of the state legislature and the governor. The best polling barometers indicate that Hawaiian citizens oppose creating a race-based governing entity with unknown powers. If the proponents of the Akaka Bill genuinely believed Finding (23), they would readily accede to holding hearings and a plebiscite in Hawaii as a condition of its effectiveness on the model of the statehood plebiscite. But they are adamantly opposed because they fear defeat.

   Section 3's definition of ``Native Hawaiian'' in subsection (8)(A) falsely insinuates that Native Hawaiians exercised popular sovereignty in Hawaii on or before 1893. Sovereignty rested with the Monarch; and, Native Hawaiians never operated a race-based government.

   Section 4 is replete with falsehoods. Subsections (a)(1) and (2) falsely maintain that the United States has a special political and legal relationship with Native Hawaiians. No such special relationship is recognized in the United States Constitution, which requires equality among citizens. Subsection (a)(3) falsely maintains that the congressional power to regulate commerce ``with the Indian Tribes'' empowers Congress to create a race-based government for Native Hawaiians. Creating a race-based government is not a regulation of commerce; and, Native Hawaiians, unlike Indian Tribes, never organized a government exclusively for Native Hawaiians. No court has ever sanctioned the subsection's far-fetched interpretation of the Indian Commerce Clause. Article IV of the Constitution provided the congressional authority for the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 and for Hawaiian statehood. The many several federal laws addressing the conditions of Native Hawaiians are not based on the Indian Commerce Clause. To the extent they embrace racial distinctions, they are unconstitutional.

   Subsection (a)(4) falsely asserts that Native Hawaiians sport an inherent right to autonomy in their internal affairs; an inherent right to self-determination and self-governance; the right to reorganize a Native Hawaiian governing entity; and, a right to become economically self-sufficient. None of these asserted rights is recognized by the Constitution or federal statutes. All have been concocted by proponents of the Akaka Bill with no more legitimacy than the right of the Confederacy to secede from the Union.

   Subsection (b) falsely asserts that the purpose of the Akaka Bill is to provide a process for the ``reorganization'' of the Native Hawaiian governing entity. As explained above, there has never been a race-based Native Hawaiian governing entity. Something that has never been cannot be reorganized.

   Section 7 is flagrantly unconstitutional in its erection of a race-based government in violation of the non-discrimination mandates of the Fifth, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. It directs the Secretary of Interior to appoint nine Native Hawaiian Commissioners to prepare and maintain a roll of Native Hawaiians to participate in the bogus ``reorganization'' of a Native Hawaiian government. The race-based appointments violate the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment. Preparing and maintaining a race-based electoral roll violates the same equal protection command. See Rice v. Cayetano, supra.. As Justice Anthony Kennedy explained in that case:

   ``The ancestral inquiry mandated by [Hawaii] is forbidden by the Fifteenth Amendment for the further reason that the use of racial classifications is corruptive of the whole legal order democratic elections seek to preserve. The law itself may not become the instrument for generating the prejudice and hostility all too often directed against persons whose particular ancestry is disclosed by their ethnic characteristics and cultural traditions. `Distinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of equality.' Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81 (1943). Ancestral tracing of this sort achieves its purpose by creating a legal category which employs the same mechanisms, and causes the same injuries, as laws or statutes that use race by name.'' Cayetano, at 517.

   Under Section 7, the enrolled race-based members are empowered to elect an Interim Governing Council from one of their own, another race-based voting distinction that violates the Fifteenth Amendment and equal protection. The Fifteenth Amendment (which promises the right to vote shall not be denied on account of race) includes any election in which public issues are decided or public officials selected. The Council establishes race-based criteria for citizenship in the Native Hawaiian governing entity, subject to a race-based plebiscite, and otherwise cobbles together an organic governing document. The Secretary of Interior then certifies the organic race-based charter under which race-based elections are held to the Native Hawaiian governing entity. That certification would violate the Secretary's solemn oath to protect and defend the Constitution without mental reservation. It seems highly improbable that the Native Hawaiian commissioners would allow an electoral role for non-native Hawaiians. The bill itself anticipates a ``native Hawaiian governing entity' which would be a misnomer if non-native Hawaiians were included.

   Section 8 establishes an open-ended negotiating agenda between the United States, the

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State of Hawaii, and the unconstitutional Native Hawaiian governing entity to fix the powers and immunities of the latter. Nothing is excluded. For example, the Native Hawaiian entity might exercise criminal and civil jurisdiction over non-Native Hawaiians. It might be exempt from all federal, state, and local taxes. It might be shielded from all federal, state, and local regulatory, health, welfare, labor, zoning, and environmental laws. It might be free of restraints imposed by the United States Constitution, and violate freedom of speech, press, religion, or association with impunity. It might be empowered to exercise eminent domain over land both within and without its geographical boundaries. It might be authorized to exempt Native Hawaiians from military service and to evict the United States Navy and Army from their current Hawaiian bases. Proponents of the Akaka Bill adamantly refuse to exclude these horrors by explicit language.

END

AGAINST RACE-BASED GOVERNMENT IN HAWAII, PART III -- (Senate - June 16, 2005)

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---

   Mr. KYL. Madam. President, I rise today to ask unanimous consent that the following account of the history of the Hawaiian monarchy be printed in the RECORD following my present remarks.

   The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is ordered.

   (See exhibit 1.)

   Mr. KYL. This history is in the appendix to ``Hawaii Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand,'' an analysis of the 1993 apology resolution and S. 147, the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, that was prepared by constitutional scholar Bruce Fein. I previously have introduced earlier parts of that analysis into the RECORD--this is the third and final instalment.

   The appendix to Mr. Fein's analysis carefully explains the nature of the Hawaiian monarchy, its evolution toward constitutional democracy, the attempt by the last monarch to undercut those reforms and compromise the judiciary, and the actors involved in stopping that monarch and establishing a democratic republic. This account is a useful antidote to the tendentious blame-America narrative provided in the 1993 apology resolution. The truth is much more nuanced than the resolution's ``Whites vs. Natives'' account. The real story is about a multiracial constitutional monarchy slowly evolving toward democratic norms and equal rights--a process whose final step was the admission of Hawaii as a State in the Union. That step was approved in 1959 by 94 percent of Hawaii's voters--large majorities of non-Natives and Natives alike.

   The Native Hawaiian Government Act would undo that step--Hawaii's admission to the Union as a unified people and State. Indeed, it would even undo the progress made under the Kamehameha monarchy. That constitutional monarchy was not a monoracial institution. It included Hawaiians of all races. This bill would create, for the first time in Hawaii since the early 19th century, a government of one race only. This is not progress.

   I urge my colleagues to read Mr. Fein's history, and to ask themselves why we would want to undo the achievements of past generations of Hawaiians by enacting S. 147 and creating a race-based government in Hawaii.

   Exhibit 1

[From the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, Jun. 1, 2005]

   Hawaii Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand

(By Bruce Fein)

   APPENDIX

   The apology issued by the United States Congress in 1993 to the Native Hawaiians for the ``illegal'' overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and its annexation to the United States is riddled with historical inaccuracies. The resolution alleges that the Committee of Safety, the political juggernaut that deposed Queen Lili'uokalani, ``represented American and European sugar planters, descendants of missionaries, and financiers.'' The language fails to disclose the Hawaiian monarchy's deep and lasting ties with the most powerful sugar planters on the islands. Many of the wealthiest sugar barons steadfastly supported the monarchy in opposition to the Committee for Safety.

   Chinese and Japanese immigrants provided an abundant source of cheap labor on the sugar plantations. They labored for wages below what was required on the American mainland. The sugar planters owed their impressive profit margins to these workers. Annexation to the United States would have eliminated the sugar planter's labor cost advantage. Many sugar barons vigorously defended the monarchy to retain their access to cheap labor.

   The sugar barons invested heavily in the monarchy. Claus Spreckels, the wealthiest sugar baron on the islands, established Claus Spreckels & Co. Bank in 1885. King Kalakaua borrowed heavily from Spreckels' bank; the planter's substantial influence garnered him the nickname ``King Claus''. King Kalakaua unsuccessfully endeavored to secure a two million dollar loan from the British to settle his debts to Spreckels' bank. Spreckels' financial stake in the monarchy provided him with considerable political capital, which he spent securing his business interests. After the Committee of Safety deposed the Queen, Spreckels vigorously lobbied for her re-instatement.

   Some planters and financiers did offer their support to the Committee of Safety due to economic concerns. Prior to 1890, the United States conferred the privilege of duty free sugar imports only on Hawaii. The McKinley Tariffs eliminated Hawaii's advantage by allowing all foreign suppliers to export their sugar to the United States duty free and subsidizing domestic sugar production. Some businessman favored establishing a free trade agreement with the United States; others contended that annexation would assure unfettered access to American markets for Hawaiian goods. However, the congressional resolution exaggerates the presence of sugar planters on the Committee of Safety. Two members did hold management positions at sugar companies, and the Honolulu Ironworks, a provider of equipment to the plantations, employed another member. No member held a controlling interest in a sugar company, nor would it be accurate to assert that any of the members were sugar barons.

   Queen Lili'uokalani herself furnished the proximate cause of the revolt. Since its inception in 1810, the Hawaiian monarchy embraced increasingly democratic governance. Queen Lili'uokalani reversed that trend when she sought to unilaterally change the constitution to augment her own power and weaken the government's system of checks and balances. The Hawaiian constitution, that the Queen had sworn to uphold, explicitly limited the power to revise the Constitution to the legislature, which represented native and non-Native Hawaiians alike. Her proposed Constitution allowed the monarch to appoint nobles for life, reduced judges' tenure from life to six years, removed the prohibition against diminishing judge's compensation, and admonished Cabinet members that they would serve only ``during the queen's pleasure.'' The Queen's own cabinet refused to legitimize her autocratic constitution. Her disregard for democracy provoked the 1893 revolution. The congressional resolution blatantly ignores the historical circumstances surrounding her overthrow.

   While the apology expressly condemns the alleged military intervention by the United States, the Hawaiian monarchy itself established its primacy through a series of bloody conflicts with rival chieftains. King Kamehameha I succeeded in uniting the islands and establishing control over foreign immigration, which began with Captain Cook's arrival nearly thirty years earlier. He did not hold elections. He gained power through brute force and ruthless measures. During a battle in the Nuuanu Valley, Kamehameha's forces drove thousands of Oahuan warriors off steep cliffs to their death. According to the logic of the congressional Apology Resolution, King Kamehameha I's seizure of land by force amounts to a violation of international law. The Hawaiian monarchy, which the resolution holds in such high regard, is guilty of far more egregious ``illegal'' actions than those supposedly perpetrated by the United States.

   In 1819, shortly after the death of Kamehameha I, his widow, Kaahumanu, became the de facto ruler and installed the deceased King's 23 year old son by another wife, Liholiho, as the nominal ruler, thereafter known as Kamehameha II. Under pressure from Kaahumanu and Keopuolani, the young king's mother, Liholiho broke the kapu, ordered the destruction of heiaus (stone alters) and the burning of wooden idols. Anthropologists have long regarded pre-contact Hawaii as the most highly stratified of all Polynesian chiefdoms. The chiefly elite from Maui and Hawaii Island had exercised a cycle of territorial conquest, promulgating the kapu system, an ideology based on the cult of Ku, a human sacrifice-demanding god of war, to legitimize chiefly dominance over the common people. The chiefs typically imposed the death penalty for violating kapu; women and those of lower castes suffered disproportionately under the system. When Liholiho broke the kapu by sitting down to eat with the women Ali'i, Kaahumanu announced, ``We intend to eat pork and bananas and coconuts

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and live as the white people do.'' The following year, 1820, the first American missionaries arrived in Hawaii. Soon after, Kaahumanu took charge of Christianity and made it the official religion of the Kingdom. These shattering changes in the religion, culture and governance of Hawaii were the work of the Native Hawaiians themselves.

   All foreigners came under the purview of the Native Hawaiian monarchy. The Apology Resolution decries the imperialist tendencies of the missionaries, yet their access to Native Hawaiians remained contingent on the monarchy's good graces. Several attempts to inject the Ten Commandments into the civil code failed, and King Kamehameha III actually banned Catholic missionaries for a time.

   The Hawaiian monarchy had gained international recognition by the reign of King Kamehameha III. The child king ceded power to his regent, Kaahumanu, who remained the de facto ruler until her death in 1832. While the regency yielded significant changes in Hawaiian common law, including the introduction of jury trials, King Kamehameha III affected a seismic shift toward democracy when he produced the Constitution of 1840. The influx of foreign merchants and settlers had exposed the Native Hawaiians to new modes of jurisprudence and governance. These revolutionary ideas found expression in the new Hawaiian constitution. King Kamehameha III took a particular interest in studying political structures; he requested that an American missionary, William Richards, tutor him in political economy and law.

   The king, the chiefs, and their advisors convened to draft a declaration of rights and laws in 1839. The declaration secured the rights of each Hawaiian citizen to ``life, limb, liberty, the labor of his lands, and productions of his mind'' and represented a critical concession to the king's subjects. The language ensured that native and non-Native Hawaiian citizens enjoyed equal protection under the law.

   The following year, the council of chiefs and King Kamehameha III drafted a formal constitution. The document provided for the creation of a ``representative body'' chosen by the people and a supreme court consisting of the king; the kuhina-nui, the premier or regent; and four judges appointed by the ``representative body.'' Moreover, the document specified that only the legislature could approve alterations to the constitution following a year's notice of the proposed change. The government followed the mandated procedure and revised the constitution in 1852, which more explicitly outlined the powers accorded to each branch of government. While the Hawaiians borrowed many of their political philosophies from Western civilization, they forged a government of their own accord.

   The Apology Resolution contends that ``the Indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims to their inherent sovereignty as a people or over their national lands to the United States,'' yet the land system remained virtually unchanged after the 1893 overthrow and subsequent annexation. King Kamehameha III embarked on an ambitious land reform program in 1848, termed the ``Great Mahele.'' The original spate of reforms, the Buke Mahele, divided the land amongst the King and the 245 chiefs. The King further divided his lands into the Crown Lands and the Government Lands, the latter was to be ``managed, leased, or sold, in accordance with the will of said Nobles and Representatives . . .'' [Footnote: R.S. Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom 1778-1854 Vol 1, pg. 289.] Then, the Kuleana Grant program offered fee simple titles to the native tenants tilling each plot or kuleana. The commoners' share of land constituted a small fraction of the total; however, the kuleana lands were the primary productive agricultural land of the Kingdom and were considered extremely valuable. The Kuleana Grants awarded land to approximately two out of every three Native Hawaiian families.

   The editor of the Polynesian newspaper extolled the grant as ``the crowning fact that gives liberty to a nation of serfs.'' Indeed, fifty years prior to annexation, the Hawaiian monarchy dismantled the ``subsistent social system based on communal land tenure'' that the Apology Resolution references. The government only extended the possibility of land ownership to foreign born residents two years after the Kuleana Grant. The provisional government of 1893 simply gained ownership of the crown lands and the government lands. The Apology Resolution faults the United States for acquiring those lands from the provisional government without providing compensation to Hawaii. Yet, the United States assumed over 3.8 million dollars of Hawaii's public debt, largely incurred under the monarchy, after annexation. That debt burden amounts to twice the market value of the land the United States inherited. Native Hawaiians did not forfeit one acre of land as a consequence of the overthrow or annexation.

   King Kamehameha III's reign institutionalized a measure of representative democracy and property rights in Hawaii. King Kamehameha V's failure to designate a successor afforded native and non-native subjects alike the opportunity to elect the next two monarchs, King Lunalilo and King Kalakaua. The Hawaiian monarchy itself infused democracy, property rights, and a system of common law into Hawaiian society. The annexation did not alter those institutions.

   The Constitution of 1887 extended democracy to the selection of nobility, reduced the arbitrary power of the King, stipulated that only the legislature could approve constitutional changes, and mandated that no cabinet minister could be dismissed without the legislature's consent. While the King signed the new constitution under pressure from a militia group, the Honolulu Rifles, the net effect of the revisions provided Hawaiian citizens with a more democratic government. Many natives expressed concern over the extension of suffrage to resident foreigners of western descent and the property qualifications to vote for or become nobles. A minority embarked on an ill-fated effort to depose King Kalakaua and install Lili'uokalani in his place. However, most native and non-native dissenters sought redress within the democratic system. Their opposition parties, the National Reform Party and the Liberal Party, garnered a substantial number of seats in the legislature. Queen Lili'uokalani's autocratic demands in 1893 appear even more egregious against the backdrop of liberalization that her predecessors championed.

   The Apology Resolution also casts United States Minister to Hawaii, John Stevens, in a sinister light, charging that he ``conspired with a small group of non-Hawaiian residents of the Kingdom of Hawaii . . . to overthrow the indigenous and lawful Government of Hawaii.'' Moreover, the resolution contends that the United States Navy invaded Hawaii and positioned themselves ``near Hawaiian Government buildings and the Iolani Palace to intimidate Queen Liliuokalani.'' There is not a shred of hard evidence to support either of those claims. The Blount Report itself, cited by the Apology Resolution, contains statements from the leaders of the revolution and from John Stevens himself which directly refute those allegations. W.O. Smith recounted the Committee of Safety's contact with Minister Stevens in Blount's report: ``Mr. Stevens gave assurances of his earnest purpose to afford all the protection that was in his power to protect life and property; he emphasized that fact that while he would call for the United States troops to protect life and property, he could not recognize any government until actually established. He repeated that the troops when landed would not take sides with either Party, but would protect American life and property.''

   Minister Stevens consistently denied any involvement in the revolution. Any statement to the contrary amounts to little more than speculation.

   The Blount Report was a partisan endeavor. The newly elected Democratic President Cleveland castigated the outgoing Republican administration of President Harrison for its ``interventionist'' tactics in Hawaii prior to any investigation. Cleveland accused Minister Stevens of orchestrating virtually every aspect of the revolution in an address to Congress claiming that ``But for the notorious predilections of the United States Minister for annexation, the Committee of Safety, which should be called the Committee of Annexation, would never have existed.'' In fact, King Kamehameha III first proposed annexation to the United States in 1851, despite strenuous objections from the French and the British. When Cleveland commissioned the Blount report, the ongoing effort to discredit the Harrison administration colored Blount's impartiality. He did not swear in his witnesses, nor did he interview all involved. Cleveland even attempted to re-instate Queen Liliuokalani, although he aborted those efforts after the Queen repeatedly insisted that all involved in the Committee of Safety be executed. The Senate's bipartisan Morgan Report found little evidence to support Queen Lilioukalani's fraudulent claims that United States pressure forced her to abdicate the crown.

   The provisional government encountered little resistance. Just 800 Hawaiian royalists staged a short-lived counter-revolution in 1895. Under the leadership of President Sanford B. Dole, the new government convened a constitutional convention in the summer of 1894. The resulting document cemented civil liberties for all Hawaiian citizens, similar to the American Bill of Rights, and mandated that a Senate and House of Representatives be elected by the people. Royalists continued to express their frustrations in opposition newspapers without censure. After the 1898 annexation, Native Hawaiians proved a dynamic force in island politics. While just one of the Washington-appointed Governors, Samuel Wilder King, possessed Hawaiian blood, five out of ten elected Delegates to Congress boasted Native Hawaiian ancestry. In 1903, a Native Hawaiian Delegate to Congress of royal ancestry, Prince Kuhio, delivered Hawaii's first petition for statehood to Washington.

   August 21, 1959 remains a day of celebration for Hawaiians of all races and creeds. Hawaii's induction into the union as the fiftieth state marked the culmination of its protracted struggle for statehood. Native and non-Native Hawaiians voted overwhelming in favor of statehood in the plebiscite preceding the formal declaration. Native Hawaiians did not rally in opposition to statehood; just 6 percent of the voters opposed the measure whereas 94 percent resoundingly announced their support. As Senator Inouye of Hawaii so eloquently testified, ``Hawaii remains one of the greatest examples of a multiethnic society living in relative peace.'' Congressional Record, 1994, Page S12249. He echoes the same sentiments Captain Ashford expressed in 1884 to King Kalakaua when he referred to the Hawaiian flag as, ``this beautiful emblem of the unity

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of many peoples who, blended together on a benignant basis of political and race equality, combine to form the Kingdom of Hawaii .....'' The Akaka Bill would thus represent a wretched regression in race relations that would occasion equally wretched racial ills.

END

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