344 



HAWAII. 



probable that disturbances may be created at 

 any moment." Mr. Willis suggested that this 

 letter should be withdrawn and no record of it be 

 made by either Government. Mr. Dole refused, 

 and on Jan. 11, in a long letter, specified the 

 various acts of which he complained. 



Secretary Gresham sent instructions to Minis- 

 ter Willis to confine himself to keeping the de- 

 partment informed of the course of events, the 

 matter being in the hands of Congress and his 

 special instructions having been fully complied 

 with, saying that " while it is true that the Pro- 

 visional" Government was created to exist only 

 until the islands were annexed to the United 

 States, that the Queen finally surrendered reluc- 

 tantly to the armed force which this Govern- 

 ment had illegally quartered in Honolulu, and 

 that representatives of the Provisional Govern- 

 ment, who realized its impotency and were anx- 

 ious to get control of the Queen's means of de- 

 fense, assured her that if she surrendered her 

 case would be considered by the United States, 

 the President has never claimed that such action 

 constituted him arbitrator in a technical sense " ; 

 but since the subversion of the Hawaiian Govern- 

 ment " by an abuse of the authority of the 

 United States" was ' a plain violation of inter- 

 national law," it required the President " to dis- 

 avow and condemn the acts of our offending 

 officials," and "within the limits of his constitu- 

 tional powers " to endeavor " to restore lawful 

 authority." 



The Republican Constitution. The Pro- 

 visional Government called a convention for the 

 adoption of a Constitution. All citizens under 

 the old Constitution, all Americans and Euro- 

 peans who had resided for a year in the islands, 

 and members of the military and police forces 

 who had been engaged prior to Jan. 1 were 

 qualified to vote on taking an oath to support the 

 Government and to oppose the re-establishment 

 of the monarchy. About 3,200 registered and 

 voted on all the islands, and the election took 

 place on May 2 for 18 delegates, who with 19 

 official representatives, consisting of all the 

 members of the Executive and Advisory Coun- 

 cils of the Provisional Government, formed the 

 Constitutional Convention. The Royalists, in a 

 mass meeting of 2,000 or 3,000, on April 9, pro- 

 tested against any project to extinguish the 

 Constitution of 1887 or to adopt a new form of 

 government until a definite reply should be re- 

 ceived from the United States to the protest 

 of the Constitutional Government against the 

 action of those who deposed it, and declared 

 that the provision constituting the members of 

 the Provisional Government a majority of the 

 convention deprived it of all representative 

 character, and that the oath required was a prac- 

 tical disfranchisement of the Hawaiian people: 

 wherefore they appealed to their compatriots to 

 stand firm in their refusal to take oath or to 

 register or vote for delegates. 



The Constitutional Convention assembled on 

 May 31. President Dole in his opening address 

 said: 



The delay which the project of political union be- 

 tween Hawaii and the United Stato of America lias 

 experienced lias brought up the question of modify- 

 ing the present provisional system in order to give the 

 Government a permanent form and to more fully in- 



troduce the principle of representation by the people- 

 This subject has been carefully considered, both 

 from the standpoint of the responsibility of the 

 ecutive and Advisory Councils and of the rights ot 

 the people and the necessities of the case ; and while 

 such a change is imperatively demanded by an intel- 

 ligent public sentiment, it also appears consonant 

 with the situation, which is naturally favorable to the 

 growth of free institutions. 



This being conceded, it became necessary to decide 

 whether to reach the desired result by taking the 



E resent system as a basis and building* upon that or 

 y wholly reorganizing the Government. The latter 

 method was adopted as giving more freedom of action 

 and a better opportunity of establishing a system 

 suited to national conditions. The question of coin- 

 position of the convention to be called for making a 

 new Constitution was a perplexing one; for while it 

 was desired to have direct popular representation to 

 as great an extent as might be possible, the Councils 

 felt that they could not consistently with the trust 

 imposed upon them by the proclamation of Jan. 17, 

 1893, relinquish to other hands the whole respon- 

 sibility in an enterprise so vital to the future welfare 

 of the country. It was therefore decided to conlide 

 the work to a body made up of the Councils and 

 elected delegates. 



" The authority of those who exercise political 

 power," he averred, " is based upon capacity to 

 exercise political duty," and in regard to limita- 

 tion of the franchise he urged that the franchise 

 or function of citizenship " is a duty that may 

 only be performed with advantage by those who 

 are mentally qualified for its decisions." 



The new Constitution was adopted on June 30 

 by the vote of the Convention, which altered the 

 draft submitted by the Provisional Government 

 by lowering the property qualification and in- 

 troducing some other democratic features to 

 satisfy the American Annexationists and white 

 people of moderate means who were not identi- 

 fied with the Missionary party or the sugar- 

 growing interest. It was promulgated on July 

 4, 1894. 



The Government is called the Republic of 

 Hawaii. There is a President, elected for six 

 years and not re-eligible, but no Vice-President. 

 There is a Cabinet of 4 Ministers, who are ap- 

 pointed by the President with the approval of 

 the Senate, and are responsible for the con- 

 duct of their respective departments to the 

 President, who, however, can not remove one of 

 them without the approval either of the Sen- 

 ate or of the other three members of the Cabi- 

 net. The Cabinet ministers are ex-officio mem- 

 bers of both houses of the Legislature, with 

 the rights, powers, and privileges of elected 

 members, except the right to vote. The Legis- 

 lative power is vested in two chambers, a Sen- 

 ate and a House of Representatives. To vote 

 for a member of the House of Representatives a 

 citizen must be a born or a naturalized Hawaiian, 

 able to read, write, and speak English or the 

 Hawaiian language . with fluency. An alien 

 to obtain naturalization must be able to read 

 and write English well, must possess property 

 worth $200, and must renounce all foreign al- 

 legiance, and he must come from a country with 

 which Hawaii has a naturalization treaty. This 

 last provision meets the case of Asiatics the 

 Chinese, who have been able to obtain a large 

 part of the foreign and internal trade, and tin' 

 Japanese, who also compete with Americans and 

 Europeans in agriculture, horticulture, handi- 



