Difference between revisions of "Template:Nhsc-v1-279"

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There was little doubt that members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations were anxious to forestall any attempt by a European Power to secure some means of control over Hawaii• The cession of Pearl Harbor as a naval station would definitely place the United states in a position of dominance in the islands, and this very fact accounted for the reluctance of the Hawaiian Government to make a favorable response to this Senate suggestion. 102/

This concern in the United States about foreign influence was exacerbated in late 1886 by rumors that Hawaii was going to float a $2 million loan, negotiated in England, that would "pledge the public revenues of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a collateral security for that loan." 103/ The United States felt this would interfere with their preferred rights gained under the 1875 Treaty. This situation, along with hints received of attempts to negotiate a treaty between Hawaii and Canada, wa3 enough for the United States Senate to approve a new treaty of reciprocity with Hawaii on January 10, 1887. The king quickly approved it after the reformists' revolt.

Cabinet Government and Attempts to Regain Powers of the Monarchy, 1887 to 1891 104/

The remaining years prior to the establishment of a Provisional Government in 1893 were marked with sporadic attempts by the native Hawaiians to regain some measure of their power:

The men who carried through the Revolution of 1887 thought they had, in the constitution of that year, formulated the conditions under which monarchy could continue to exist in the Hawaiian islands...But the Hawaiian monarchy did not willingly accept the role assigned to it by the Constitution of 1887. It wanted the sovereign to be not merely a glamorous symbol of the power of the nation but the actual repository and wielder of that power as he had been in earlier years. The conflict between these two concepts of government is the most important feature of the history of the remaining years of the kingdom. 105/

Under Article 80 of the new constitution of 1887, elections were required to be held within ninety days for nobles and representatives. A campaign preceded the election, which was to be held on September 12, 1887. Meetings were held by the opposition in which objections were raised to the suffrage provisions of the constitution (Articles 59 and 62), which excluded all persons of Asiatic birth from the privilege of voting. A Hawaiian lawyer, J. M. Poepoe, a leader of the native Hawaiians, also objected to the suffrage provisions and suggested a petition to the king. 106/

Resolutions were adopted a short time later by the opposition (that is, the natives) requesting that "the new Constitution be abrogated, and the old one reestablished; that all volunteer companies be forthwith disbanded and that all the arms and ammunition in possession of citizens be taken away from them." 107/ In response to these resolutions, the king replied: "the new constitution (his constitution) was better than the old and that it enlarged rather than curtailed the civil rights of the people." 108/ The king was later reported to have made