Like a lei floating on the surface of the sea, a young chain of islands, the pearls of the Pacific, came to grace the middle of the ocean. Rising up from the depths to become the world’s tallest mountains, the Hawaiian Islands with a warm tropical climate and soft flowing trade winds became a unique natural environment for plants, animals and finally human culture.
This is our story, this is the story of Hawai’i….
Unhappy with the rule of King Kalakaua and his premier, Walter Murray Gibson, the leaders of the Reform Party of the Hawaiian Kingdom demanded that the king to adopt a new constitution.
On July 1, Kalakaua asked his entire cabinet, including Gibson, to resign and by July 6, his new cabinet – William Green, Godfrey Brown, Lorrin Thurston and Clarence Ashford – had a new constitution drawn up to their liking. After a day spent haggling and arguing over the changes, Kalakaua, under threat of force, signed the document initiating a transfer of power to American, European and native Hawaiian elites and reduced him to a figurehead. The 1887 Constitution made important revisions to the constitution of 1864. The constitution replaced the absolute veto allowed to the king to one that two-thirds of the legislature of the Hawaiian Kingdom could override. It took away the power of the king to act without consent of his cabinet, and gave the legislature, the power to dismiss the cabinet instead of the king. It also removed language from the 1864 constitution implying that the king was above the law. The cabinet was now allowed to vote in the legislature, but to reduce the king’s influence, he was not allowed to appoint legislators to any other government post.
The constitution also removed the monarch’s power to appoint members of the House of Nobles, instead making it a body elected to six-year terms and enlarging it to 40 members. The 1887 constitution made significant changes to voting requirements. It allowed foreign resident aliens to vote, not just naturalized citizens. Asians, including subjects who previously enjoyed the right to vote, were specifically denied suffrage. Only Hawaiian, American, and European males were granted full voting rights if they met the economic and literacy thresholds.
Lorrin A. Thurston, one of the perpetrators of the new constitution, admitted the document was signed by Kalakaua under shady circumstances. Writing later, he said, “Unquestionably the constitution was not in accordance with law; neither was the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. Both were revolutionary documents, which had to be forcibly effected and forcibly maintained.”
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