Presidents and Monarchs: Three Presidents and Queen Liliʻuokalani
Liliʻuokalani was the last sovereign monarch and the only queen regnant of the Kingdom of Hawaii. She ruled from January 29, 1891, until the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 17, 1893. She was a learned woman whose many accomplishments include composition of the song "Aloha ʻOe" and numerous others, and she also wrote an autobiography which she called "Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen." The autobiography was written during her imprisonment following the overthrow.
Liliʻuokalani was born on September 2, 1838, in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu. She married American-born John Owen Dominis, who later became the Governor of Oahu. When her brother David Kalākaua ascended to the throne of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1874, she was given the title of Princess. In 1877, after her younger brother Leleiohoku II's death, she was proclaimed as heir apparent to the throne. During the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, she represented her brother as an official envoy to the United Kingdom.
Liliʻuokalani ascended to the throne on January 29, 1891, nine days after her brother's death. During her reign, she attempted to draft a new constitution which would restore the power of the monarchy and the voting rights of the economically disenfranchised. She faced problems with foreign countries, including the United States. The US, Japan, Great Britain and Germany all coveted Hawaii as it was considered to be a valuable military possession, strategically placed as an ideal coal station at a time when Naval might meant military might.
When Liliʻuokalani became Queen, Hawaii had been governed by what was known as the "Bayonet Constitution." On June 30, 1887, a meeting was held by Hawaiian residents, at which the armed militia of the Honolulu Rifles, a group of white soldiers from the "Hawaiian League" with pro-American interests, and politicians who were members of the Reform Party of the Hawaiian Kingdom were present. The group demanded from King Kalākaua the dismissal of his Cabinet, a group which supported the king's authority. The meeting was chaired by Sanford B. Dole, an American who was the president of the largest sugarcane plantation agency in Hawaii. The Hawaiian League and Americans controlled a vast majority of the Hawaiian Kingdom's wealth. Lorrin A. Thurston, who was the instigator of an effort to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy, prepared a list of demands to the king. The meeting also insisted a new constitution be written.
On the next morning, July 1, 1887, a shipment of arms from a neutral Australian ship was seized by the Honolulu Rifles. They arrested the pro-monarchy Cabinet leader Walter Gibson and threatened to hang him. King Kalākaua called upon foreign ministers from the United States, and the British, French, Portuguese, and Japanese representatives and requested help. They all suggested that he should comply with any demands made by the Honolulu Rifles. The King did so. Thurston then became the de facto leader of the cabinet, although Englishman William Lowthian Green was nominally head of the Cabinet as Minister of Finance. Gibson was exiled to San Francisco.
With a week, a new constitution was drafted by a group of lawyers associated with the Hawaiian League. This group wanted the end of the kingdom and its annexation by the United States. Under extreme duress, King Kalākaua signed the document July 6, 1887. It stripped the king of most of his personal authority, empowering the legislature and cabinet of the government. It has since become known as the "Bayonet Constitution" because of the threat of force used to gain the King's cooperation. Queen Lili'uokalani wrote in her autobiography that King Kalākaua's life was threatened and that he signed that constitution under absolute compulsion."
When she became Queen, Liliʻuokalani was determined to promulgate a new constitution to regain powers for the monarchy and for native Hawaiians. Lorrin A. Thurston and his supporters were outraged by her attempts and moved to depose the Queen, overthrow the monarchy, and seek Hawaii's annexation to the United States. The Queen had the support of two major political parties: Hui Kālaiʻāina and the National Reform Party. With the support of two-thirds of the registered voters, the Queen moved to abrogate the existing 1887 Bayonet constitution, but her cabinet withheld their support.
The proposed constitution was co-written by the Queen and two legislators. It proposed the restoration of power to the monarchy, and giving voting rights to economically disenfranchised native Hawaiians and Asians. Many of the Queen's close advisers were opposed to this plan and tried unsuccessfully to dissuade her from going ahead with it.
The Queen's plans generated political rallies and meetings in Honolulu. Anti-monarchists, annexationists, and leading Reform Party politicians, including Lorrin A. Thurston, formed the Committee of Safety in protest of what they termed to be the "revolutionary" action of the Queen. They made plans to depose her. Thurston and the Committee of Safety had support from American and European business interests. In response, royalists and loyalists formed the Committee of Law and Order and met at the palace square on January 16, 1893. Pro-monarchist leaders gave speeches in support for the queen and the government.
The Marshal of the Kingdom, Charles Burnett Wilson, was tipped off about the imminent planned coup, and he requested warrants to arrest the 13-member council of the Committee of Safety, and put the Kingdom under martial law. This was opposed by United States Minister to Hawaii John L. Stevens and the requests were denied by the queen's cabinet, who feared that the arrests would escalate the situation. The Queen tried to negotiate with Thurston. Wilson rallied a force of 496 men who were kept at hand to protect the queen. Marines from the USS Boston and two companies of US sailors landed and took up positions at the US Legation, the Consulate, and Arion Hall. They were there ostensibly to protect American interests, but their presence served to intimidate royalist defenders, making it impossible for the monarchy to protect itself.
The queen was deposed the next day, on January 17, 1893. A provisional government was established under pro-annexation leader Sanford B. Dole was officially recognized by Minister Stevens as the de facto government. The Queen temporarily relinquished her throne to the United States, rather than the Dole-led government. It was her hope that the United States would restore Hawaii's sovereignty to the rightful holder.
Dole's government sent a delegation to Washington D.C. on January 19, to ask for immediate annexation by the United States. In the interim, Stevens proclaimed Hawaii a protectorate of the United States on February 1, to temporarily prevent interference by foreign governments. The US flag was raised over the palace, and martial law was enforced. An annexation treaty presented to the US Senate, which contained a provision to grant Liliʻuokalani a $20,000 per annum lifetime pension. The queen protested the proposed annexation in a January 19 letter to President Benjamin Harrison. She sent Prince David Kawānanakoa to represent her.
Benjamin Harrison was interested in expanding American influence in Hawaii and in establishing a naval base at Pearl Harbor. The United States consul in Hawaii recognized the new Hawaiian government on February 1, 1893 and forwarded their proposal of annexation to Washington. Harrison was a "lame duck" President at the time, having been defeated in the Presidential election the previous November by Grover Cleveland. With less than a month left before leaving office, Harrison's administration signed the annexation treaty on February 14, 1893 and submitted it to the Senate the next day. However the Senate failed to act before Harrison left office and before the new Senate was sworn in.
The Queen's emissaries delivered a letter to Grover Cleveland, who began his second non-consecutive term as president on March 4. The Cleveland administration decided to send James Henderson Blount to investigate the overthrow. He interviewed those involved in the coup and wrote a document that became known as "the Blount Report." He concluded that the overthrow of Liliʻuokalani was illegal, and that Stevens and American military troops had acted inappropriately in support of those who carried out the overthrow.
On November 16, Cleveland sent his minister Albert S. Willis to Honolulu to propose a return of the throne to Liliʻuokalani if she granted amnesty to everyone responsible. It was a way out for the Queen, but her first response was that Hawaiian law called for property confiscation and the death penalty for treason, and that only her cabinet ministers could put aside the law in favor of amnesty. Liliuokalani's extreme position cost her the goodwill of the Cleveland administration.
Unable to reach a deal with the Queen, Cleveland sent the issue to the Congress, making his thoughts clear. He wrote: "The Provisional Government has not assumed a republican, or other constitutional form, but has remained a mere executive council, or oligarchy, without the consent of the people".
Finally realizing her predicament, the queen changed her position on the issue of amnesty. On December 18, Willis demanded that the provisional government reinstate her to the throne. They refused to do so. Congress did what congresses usually do. It responded with a US Senate investigation which generated "the Morgan Report" on February 26, 1894. In the report, it found Stevens and all parties except the Queen were "not guilty" and it absolved them of responsibility for the overthrow. A majority in Congress sided with the business interests over doing the right thing. The provisional government formed the Republic of Hawaii on July 4 with Dole as its president, maintaining oligarchical control of Hawaii. It continued the limited system of suffrage.
At the beginning of January 1895, Robert W. Wilcox and Samuel Nowlein launched a rebellion against the forces of the Republic with the aim of restoring the Queen and the monarchy. It failed, and led to the arrest of many of the participants and other sympathizers of the monarchy. On January 16, Liliʻuokalani was also arrested and imprisoned in an upstairs bedroom at the palace. She struck a deal in which she abdicated her throne in return for the release and commutation of the death sentences of her jailed supporters. Six of them had been sentenced to be hanged including Wilcox and Nowlein. She signed the document of abdication on January 24.
In her autobiography, Liliʻuokalani wrote:
For myself, I would have chosen death rather than to have signed it; but it was represented to me that by my signing this paper all the persons who had been arrested, all my people now in trouble by reason of their love and loyalty towards me, would be immediately released. Think of my position, – sick, a lone woman in prison, scarcely knowing who was my friend, or who listened to my words only to betray me, without legal advice or friendly counsel, and the stream of blood ready to flow unless it was stayed by my pen.
The coup d'état established the Republic of Hawaii, but the ultimate goal of the annexation of the islands to the United States, was blocked by President Grover Cleveland. Later attempts were made to restore the monarchy and oppose annexation, but with the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, the United States annexed Hawaii.
The Queen attended the inauguration of US President William McKinley on March 4, 1897. She suffered the indignity of having a Republic of Hawaii passport personally issued to "Liliuokalani of Hawaii" by the republic's president, her nemesis Sanford B. Dole. On June 16, McKinley presented the United States Senate with a new version of the annexation treaty, one that eliminated the monetary compensation for Liliʻuokalani. Liliʻuokalani filed an official protest with Secretary of State John Sherman the next day.
In June 1897 President McKinley signed the "Treaty for the Annexation for the Hawaiian Islands", but it failed to pass in the United States Senate. Petitions had been collectively presented to the senate as evidence of the strong grassroots opposition of the Hawaiian community to annexation, and the treaty was defeated in the Senate, Despite the failure of the treaty, Hawaii was annexed by means of the "Newlands Resolution", a joint resolution of Congress, in July 1898, shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish–American War.
The annexation ceremony was held on August 12, 1898, at ʻIolani Palace, now being used as the executive building of the government. President Sanford B. Dole handed over "the sovereignty and public property of the Hawaiian Islands" to United States Minister Harold M. Sewall. The flag of the Republic of Hawaii was lowered and the flag of the United States was raised in its place. Liliʻuokalani and her supporters boycotted the event.
The Queen lived out the remainder of her life as a private citizen. Liliʻuokalani died at her residence, Washington Place, in Honolulu on November 11, 1917.
Liliʻuokalani was born on September 2, 1838, in Honolulu, on the island of Oahu. She married American-born John Owen Dominis, who later became the Governor of Oahu. When her brother David Kalākaua ascended to the throne of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1874, she was given the title of Princess. In 1877, after her younger brother Leleiohoku II's death, she was proclaimed as heir apparent to the throne. During the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria, she represented her brother as an official envoy to the United Kingdom.
Liliʻuokalani ascended to the throne on January 29, 1891, nine days after her brother's death. During her reign, she attempted to draft a new constitution which would restore the power of the monarchy and the voting rights of the economically disenfranchised. She faced problems with foreign countries, including the United States. The US, Japan, Great Britain and Germany all coveted Hawaii as it was considered to be a valuable military possession, strategically placed as an ideal coal station at a time when Naval might meant military might.
When Liliʻuokalani became Queen, Hawaii had been governed by what was known as the "Bayonet Constitution." On June 30, 1887, a meeting was held by Hawaiian residents, at which the armed militia of the Honolulu Rifles, a group of white soldiers from the "Hawaiian League" with pro-American interests, and politicians who were members of the Reform Party of the Hawaiian Kingdom were present. The group demanded from King Kalākaua the dismissal of his Cabinet, a group which supported the king's authority. The meeting was chaired by Sanford B. Dole, an American who was the president of the largest sugarcane plantation agency in Hawaii. The Hawaiian League and Americans controlled a vast majority of the Hawaiian Kingdom's wealth. Lorrin A. Thurston, who was the instigator of an effort to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy, prepared a list of demands to the king. The meeting also insisted a new constitution be written.
On the next morning, July 1, 1887, a shipment of arms from a neutral Australian ship was seized by the Honolulu Rifles. They arrested the pro-monarchy Cabinet leader Walter Gibson and threatened to hang him. King Kalākaua called upon foreign ministers from the United States, and the British, French, Portuguese, and Japanese representatives and requested help. They all suggested that he should comply with any demands made by the Honolulu Rifles. The King did so. Thurston then became the de facto leader of the cabinet, although Englishman William Lowthian Green was nominally head of the Cabinet as Minister of Finance. Gibson was exiled to San Francisco.
With a week, a new constitution was drafted by a group of lawyers associated with the Hawaiian League. This group wanted the end of the kingdom and its annexation by the United States. Under extreme duress, King Kalākaua signed the document July 6, 1887. It stripped the king of most of his personal authority, empowering the legislature and cabinet of the government. It has since become known as the "Bayonet Constitution" because of the threat of force used to gain the King's cooperation. Queen Lili'uokalani wrote in her autobiography that King Kalākaua's life was threatened and that he signed that constitution under absolute compulsion."
When she became Queen, Liliʻuokalani was determined to promulgate a new constitution to regain powers for the monarchy and for native Hawaiians. Lorrin A. Thurston and his supporters were outraged by her attempts and moved to depose the Queen, overthrow the monarchy, and seek Hawaii's annexation to the United States. The Queen had the support of two major political parties: Hui Kālaiʻāina and the National Reform Party. With the support of two-thirds of the registered voters, the Queen moved to abrogate the existing 1887 Bayonet constitution, but her cabinet withheld their support.
The proposed constitution was co-written by the Queen and two legislators. It proposed the restoration of power to the monarchy, and giving voting rights to economically disenfranchised native Hawaiians and Asians. Many of the Queen's close advisers were opposed to this plan and tried unsuccessfully to dissuade her from going ahead with it.
The Queen's plans generated political rallies and meetings in Honolulu. Anti-monarchists, annexationists, and leading Reform Party politicians, including Lorrin A. Thurston, formed the Committee of Safety in protest of what they termed to be the "revolutionary" action of the Queen. They made plans to depose her. Thurston and the Committee of Safety had support from American and European business interests. In response, royalists and loyalists formed the Committee of Law and Order and met at the palace square on January 16, 1893. Pro-monarchist leaders gave speeches in support for the queen and the government.
The Marshal of the Kingdom, Charles Burnett Wilson, was tipped off about the imminent planned coup, and he requested warrants to arrest the 13-member council of the Committee of Safety, and put the Kingdom under martial law. This was opposed by United States Minister to Hawaii John L. Stevens and the requests were denied by the queen's cabinet, who feared that the arrests would escalate the situation. The Queen tried to negotiate with Thurston. Wilson rallied a force of 496 men who were kept at hand to protect the queen. Marines from the USS Boston and two companies of US sailors landed and took up positions at the US Legation, the Consulate, and Arion Hall. They were there ostensibly to protect American interests, but their presence served to intimidate royalist defenders, making it impossible for the monarchy to protect itself.
The queen was deposed the next day, on January 17, 1893. A provisional government was established under pro-annexation leader Sanford B. Dole was officially recognized by Minister Stevens as the de facto government. The Queen temporarily relinquished her throne to the United States, rather than the Dole-led government. It was her hope that the United States would restore Hawaii's sovereignty to the rightful holder.
Dole's government sent a delegation to Washington D.C. on January 19, to ask for immediate annexation by the United States. In the interim, Stevens proclaimed Hawaii a protectorate of the United States on February 1, to temporarily prevent interference by foreign governments. The US flag was raised over the palace, and martial law was enforced. An annexation treaty presented to the US Senate, which contained a provision to grant Liliʻuokalani a $20,000 per annum lifetime pension. The queen protested the proposed annexation in a January 19 letter to President Benjamin Harrison. She sent Prince David Kawānanakoa to represent her.
Benjamin Harrison was interested in expanding American influence in Hawaii and in establishing a naval base at Pearl Harbor. The United States consul in Hawaii recognized the new Hawaiian government on February 1, 1893 and forwarded their proposal of annexation to Washington. Harrison was a "lame duck" President at the time, having been defeated in the Presidential election the previous November by Grover Cleveland. With less than a month left before leaving office, Harrison's administration signed the annexation treaty on February 14, 1893 and submitted it to the Senate the next day. However the Senate failed to act before Harrison left office and before the new Senate was sworn in.
The Queen's emissaries delivered a letter to Grover Cleveland, who began his second non-consecutive term as president on March 4. The Cleveland administration decided to send James Henderson Blount to investigate the overthrow. He interviewed those involved in the coup and wrote a document that became known as "the Blount Report." He concluded that the overthrow of Liliʻuokalani was illegal, and that Stevens and American military troops had acted inappropriately in support of those who carried out the overthrow.
On November 16, Cleveland sent his minister Albert S. Willis to Honolulu to propose a return of the throne to Liliʻuokalani if she granted amnesty to everyone responsible. It was a way out for the Queen, but her first response was that Hawaiian law called for property confiscation and the death penalty for treason, and that only her cabinet ministers could put aside the law in favor of amnesty. Liliuokalani's extreme position cost her the goodwill of the Cleveland administration.
Unable to reach a deal with the Queen, Cleveland sent the issue to the Congress, making his thoughts clear. He wrote: "The Provisional Government has not assumed a republican, or other constitutional form, but has remained a mere executive council, or oligarchy, without the consent of the people".
Finally realizing her predicament, the queen changed her position on the issue of amnesty. On December 18, Willis demanded that the provisional government reinstate her to the throne. They refused to do so. Congress did what congresses usually do. It responded with a US Senate investigation which generated "the Morgan Report" on February 26, 1894. In the report, it found Stevens and all parties except the Queen were "not guilty" and it absolved them of responsibility for the overthrow. A majority in Congress sided with the business interests over doing the right thing. The provisional government formed the Republic of Hawaii on July 4 with Dole as its president, maintaining oligarchical control of Hawaii. It continued the limited system of suffrage.
At the beginning of January 1895, Robert W. Wilcox and Samuel Nowlein launched a rebellion against the forces of the Republic with the aim of restoring the Queen and the monarchy. It failed, and led to the arrest of many of the participants and other sympathizers of the monarchy. On January 16, Liliʻuokalani was also arrested and imprisoned in an upstairs bedroom at the palace. She struck a deal in which she abdicated her throne in return for the release and commutation of the death sentences of her jailed supporters. Six of them had been sentenced to be hanged including Wilcox and Nowlein. She signed the document of abdication on January 24.
In her autobiography, Liliʻuokalani wrote:
For myself, I would have chosen death rather than to have signed it; but it was represented to me that by my signing this paper all the persons who had been arrested, all my people now in trouble by reason of their love and loyalty towards me, would be immediately released. Think of my position, – sick, a lone woman in prison, scarcely knowing who was my friend, or who listened to my words only to betray me, without legal advice or friendly counsel, and the stream of blood ready to flow unless it was stayed by my pen.
The coup d'état established the Republic of Hawaii, but the ultimate goal of the annexation of the islands to the United States, was blocked by President Grover Cleveland. Later attempts were made to restore the monarchy and oppose annexation, but with the outbreak of the Spanish–American War, the United States annexed Hawaii.
The Queen attended the inauguration of US President William McKinley on March 4, 1897. She suffered the indignity of having a Republic of Hawaii passport personally issued to "Liliuokalani of Hawaii" by the republic's president, her nemesis Sanford B. Dole. On June 16, McKinley presented the United States Senate with a new version of the annexation treaty, one that eliminated the monetary compensation for Liliʻuokalani. Liliʻuokalani filed an official protest with Secretary of State John Sherman the next day.
In June 1897 President McKinley signed the "Treaty for the Annexation for the Hawaiian Islands", but it failed to pass in the United States Senate. Petitions had been collectively presented to the senate as evidence of the strong grassroots opposition of the Hawaiian community to annexation, and the treaty was defeated in the Senate, Despite the failure of the treaty, Hawaii was annexed by means of the "Newlands Resolution", a joint resolution of Congress, in July 1898, shortly after the outbreak of the Spanish–American War.
The annexation ceremony was held on August 12, 1898, at ʻIolani Palace, now being used as the executive building of the government. President Sanford B. Dole handed over "the sovereignty and public property of the Hawaiian Islands" to United States Minister Harold M. Sewall. The flag of the Republic of Hawaii was lowered and the flag of the United States was raised in its place. Liliʻuokalani and her supporters boycotted the event.
The Queen lived out the remainder of her life as a private citizen. Liliʻuokalani died at her residence, Washington Place, in Honolulu on November 11, 1917.