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HAWAII. 



had recently been suppressed. The project of an 

 opium monopoly was revived also. Not being 

 able to cheek the tendency to loose, corrupt, and 

 wasteful legislation, the Americans who had ac- 

 complished the revolution of 1887, men who had 

 taken a leading part in the political and com- 

 mercial development of the country, and were 

 connected with or upheld by principal sugar- 

 planting and other property interests, took up 

 again the project of annexation to the United 

 States, which they had harbored in 1887 until 

 they forced Kalakaua to comply so easily with 

 their demands. The Queen, yielding to pressure 

 from one quarter and from another, changed her 

 ministers several times, and at last angered the 

 Reform party by choosing a Cabinet that was 

 favorable to the lottery, which would uphold her, 

 she was led to suppose, in her design to restore 

 the old Constitution. This Cabinet was as fol- 

 lows: Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs, 

 Samuel Parker ; Minister of the Interior, John 

 P. Colburn ; Attorney-General, A. P. Peterson ; 

 Minister of Finance, W. II. Cornwell. 



The natives have always outnumbered the 

 whites in the Legislature, but were formerly led 

 usually by the most influential section of the 

 whites. The economic changes that had taken 

 place since 1876 altered this relation, and created 

 a sharp political and race antagonism between 

 them and the element that once ruled by influ- 

 ence, and since 1887 sought to rule by coercion, 

 on the ground that those who paid the taxes 

 and surpassed the rest of the community in in- 

 telligence, ought to control the expenditure of 

 public moneys and the making of laws. The Re- 

 form or Missionary party was still strong enough, 

 standing as it did for economy and good rela- 

 tions with the United States and the civilized 

 world, to overturn in succession the Cabinets 

 appointed by the Queen. 



On Saturday, Jan. 14, 1893, the Legislature 

 was prorogued, and on that day the Queen signed 

 the lottery bill, which was suspected to have 

 been passed for the benefit of the owners of the 

 lottery that had been abolished in Louisiana. 

 Minister Stevens denounced the act as a direct 

 attack on the United States Government. 



For some months the Native or, more proper- 

 ly, the Royalist party, composed of natives and 

 whites, had urged the Queen to proclaim a new 

 Constitution, which would restore the status ex- 

 isting before the revolution of 1887 that is, dis- 

 franchise nonnaturalized aliens and transfer the 

 Eower of making Nobles from the white voters 

 ack to the Crown. A draught of such a Consti- 

 tution was in the hands of the ministers, and the 

 Queen was determined to promulgate it, and was 

 expected to do so on Jan. 14, after the closure of 

 the Legislature, when a great crowd of the Na- 

 tive party assembled before the palace. Sum- 

 moning her ministers, she requested them to 

 countersign the Constitution. They refused, and 

 when she grew excited and spoke of the threat- 

 eryng attitude of the natives, they left her. Lor- 

 rin A. Thurston, leader of the Reform party, 

 whom Colburn had applied to for aid and coun- 

 sel in the morning when the Queen had an- 

 nounced her intention of promulgating the Con- 

 stitution at once, met all the ministers in the 

 office of the Attorney-General and advised them 

 to declare the Queen in revolution and the throne 



vacant. The Minister of the Interior and the 

 Attorney-General, when the ministers were sum- 

 moned back to the Queen, would not go, but 

 consulted Thurston as to what armed support 

 they could rely on from the merchants and trad- 

 ers of the town in an effort to resist the Queen. 

 Thurston went about it, and soon had 80 men 

 pledged to support the Cabinet against the Queen 

 by force. The ministers afterward returned to 

 the Queen, and after a stormy interview she gave 

 them an assurance that she would not proclaim 

 the Constitution for the present. She addressed 

 the assembled natives outside, explaining how 

 the ministers had prevented her keeping her 

 promise to them and compelled her to defer its 

 execution, and adjuring them to return to their 

 homes and maintain the peace. The ministers 

 would have nothing more to do with the revolu- 

 tionary movement that they had invoked, but 

 continued to labor with the Queen until they 

 finally got her to put her name to a proclama- 

 tion, in which she explained that she had yielded 

 to pressure put upon her by her native subjects, 

 and gave the assurance that "any changes in the 

 fundamental law of the land will be sought only 

 by methods provided in the Constitution." The 

 members of the diplomatic body were invited to 

 examine this declaration intended to avert the 

 threatened revolution, and with their approval 

 it was published on Monday morning. The rep- 

 resentatives of England, France, Japan, and 

 Portugal were at the meeting, but not the min- 

 ister of the United States, who declined to be 

 present. He was formally presented with a copy 

 of the document. 



The Committee of Safety. A meeting of 

 50 to 100 prominent citizens met in the office 

 of W. 0. Smith on the afternoon of Jan. 14. 

 Colburn and Peterson, the Queen's ministers, 

 were present, and the former counseled armed 

 resistance to the revolutionary purpose of the 

 Queen, which they had not yet persuaded her to 

 abandon or defer. These citizens appointed a 

 committee of public safety, composed of 13 mem- 

 bers, to consider the situation and devise ways and 

 means for the maintenance of the public peace 

 and the protection of life and property. The 

 committee decided to depose the Queen and 

 establish a provisional government, and on the 

 following morning invited Colburn and Peter- 

 son to take charge of it ; but the ministers, who 

 had meanwhile induced the Queen to recede 

 from her purpose, declined. The committee re- 

 solved to abrogate the monarchy and treat for 

 the annexation of the islands to the United 

 States. In the afternoon of Jan. 16 two mass 

 meetings were held, one by the supporters of the 

 Committee of Safety and one by the friends of 

 the Government. The former voted the follow- 

 ing resolution : * 



We do hereby ratify and appoint and indorse the 

 action taken and report made by the said Committee 

 of Safety, and we do hereby further empower such 

 committee to further consider the situation and fur- 

 ther devise such ways and means as may be neces- 

 sary to secure the permanent maintenance of law and 

 order and the protection of life, liberty, and property 

 in Hawaii. 



In the other meeting it was resolved as follows : 



That the assurance of Her Majesty contained in 

 this day's proclamation is accepted by the people as 



