| HN Mirror

3,000 people. You know the entire legislative branch of the U.S. federal government amounts to 535 people, right? The current international driftnet fishing ban was secured by a loose collection of activists numbering in the 10s. Remember those oil fires in Kuwait that were magically extinquished four-and-a-half years ahead of schedule? You could count the size of that team on two hands. Also, I'd like you to acknowledge that I'm setting a very conservative lower bound with 3,000 and that the Russian and Pakistani heads of state and Bill Clinton are among those 3,000 people.

I'd also like you to know I spend a lot of time writing up these replies to make sure that my claims of Hawaiian sovereignty and continuity are supported by historical facts and legal documents. You never asked for evidence, but I'm going to go ahead and lay some down. I also would like you to provide any evidence to support your claim of U.S. sovereignty within the borders of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Now, please join me on this fact-finding journey and maybe we will cure that ignorance of yours.

By 1893, the United States and the Kingdom of Hawaii had already established treaty relations: 1849 Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation; the 1875 Commercial Treaty of Reciprocity; and the 1883 Convention Concerning the Exchange of Money Orders. The text of these treaties are online, however it is also possible to get copies of the treaties and or relevant congressional records through your local federal depository (I'm assuming you're American by your ambiguous usage of the word "we" earlier, so they would be your depositories).

These treaties prove the United States recognizes the Hawaiian Kingdom as a sovereign state. The terms state and country are synonymous.

Article II Section II of the U.S. Constitution says: "[The President] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two thirds of the Senators present concur"

This description is very clear. It means

1) Only the President may make treaties.

2) Only Congress may ratify treaties

3) A 2/3 supermajority of the Senate is required for ratification.

Following the invasion of Hawaii by U.S. forces, President Grover Cleveland issued a message to congress in which he declares that the invasion was an act of war:

a detachment of marines from the United States Steamer Boston, with two pieces of artillery, landed at Honolulu. The men, upwards of 160 in all, were supplied with double cartridge belts filled with ammunition and with haversacks and canteens, and were accompanied by a hospital corps with stretchers and medical supplies. This military demonstration upon the soil of Honolulu was of itself an act of war, unless made either with the consent of the Government of Hawaii or for the bona fide purpose of protecting the imperilled lives and property of citizens of the United States. But there is no pretense of any such consent on the part of the Government of the Queen, which at that time was undisputed and was both the de facto and the de jure government. In point of fact the existing government instead of requesting the presence of an armed force protested against it. There is as little basis for the pretense that such forces were landed for the security of American life and property. If so, they would have been stationed in the vicinity of such property and so as to protect it, instead of at a distance and so as to command the Hawaiian Government building and palace. Admiral Skerrett, the officer in command of our naval force on the Pacific station, has frankly stated that in his opinion the location of the troops was inadvisable if they were landed for the protection of American citizens whose residences and places of business, as well as the legation and consulate, were in a distant part of the city, but the location selected was a wise one if the forces were landed for the purpose of supporting the provisional government. If any peril to life and property calling for any such martial array had existed, Great Britain and other foreign powers interested would not have been behind the United States in activity to protect their citizens. But they made no sign in that direction. When these armed men were landed, the city of Honolulu was in its customary orderly and peaceful condition. There was no symptom of riot or disturbance in any quarter. Men, women, and children were about the streets as usual, and nothing varied the ordinary routine or disturbed the ordinary tranquility, except the landing of the Boston's marines and their march through the town to the quarters assigned them. Indeed, the fact that after having called for the landing of the United States forces on the plea of danger to life and property the Committee of Safety themselves requested the Minister to postpone action, exposed the untruthfulness of their representations of present peril to life and property. The peril they saw was an anticipation growing out of guilty intentions on their part and something which, though not then existing, they knew would certainly follow their attempt to overthrow the Government of the Queen without the aid of the United States forces.

In the same message Cleveland also explains that the U.S. policy precludes recognizing the Committee of Safety as a provisional government:

it has been the settled policy of the United States to concede to people of foreign countries the same freedom and independence in the management of their domestic affairs that we have always claimed for ourselves; and it has been our practice to recognize revolutionary governments as soon as it became apparent that they were supported by the people. For illustration of this rule I need only to refer to the revolution in Brazil in 1889, when our Minister was instructed to recognize the Republic "so soon as a majority of the people of Brazil should have signified their assent to its establishment and maintenance"; to the revolution in Chile in 1891, when our Minister was directed to recognize the new government "if it was accepted by the people"; and to the revolution in Venezuela in 1892, when our recognition was accorded on condition that the new government was "fully established, in possession of the power of the nation, and accepted by the people."

The provisional government has not assumed a republican or other constitutional form, but has remained a mere executive council or oligarchy, set up without the assent of the people. It has not sought to find a permanent basis of popular support and has given no evidence of an intention to do so. Indeed, the representatives of that government assert that the people of Hawaii are unfit for popular government and frankly avow that they can be best ruled by arbitrary or despotic power.

Cleveland has unequivocally declared the invasion as an act of war, which means the Kingdom of Hawaii and the U.S. have entered a state of war [1][2][3][4], and will continue to be at war until a treaty of peace is made between the U.S. and the Kingdom of Hawaii. Remember the constitutional rules for making treaties. This is according to international law.

In a state of war the president "possesses sole authority, and is charged with sole responsibility, and Congress is excluded from any direct interference"[5]

The scholars and Congress members of this time all agree that the President has sole control over foreign relations:

The president is the sole organ of the nation in its external relations, and its sole representative with foreign nations. Of consequence, the demand of a foreign nation can only be made of him [6]

Now let's take a look at Queen Liliuokalani's surrender and see if there's anything there which supports your claim:

I, Liliuokalani, by the grace of God and under the constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest against any and all acts done against myself and the constitutional Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming to have established a provisional government of and for this Kingdom.

That I yield to the superior force of the United States of America, whose minister plenipotentiary, His Excellency John L. Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu and declared that he would support the said provisional government.

Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, I do, under this protest, and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

Hmm, it seems that she still claims sovereignty over her territory. She also doesn't surrender her authority to the Committee of Safety, instead choosing to surrender, temporarily and conditionally to the U.S., until they review the situation; the condition being that the U.S. must undo the committee of Safety and restore her to the throne. In case you didn't know, the U.S. and the Committee of Safety are two separate entities. Grover Cleveland actually called the committee members "insurgents", that is, rebels revolting against the established government. At this point, the Committee of Safety has about as much sovereignty in Hawaii as the Taliban have in Afghanistan. The conditions of Liliuokalani's surrender were never fulfilled and thus, the sovereignty remains with the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Here's Cleveland's interpretation of her surrender:

She surrendered not to the provisional government, but to the United States. She surrendered not absolutely and permanently, but temporarily and conditionally until such time as the facts could be considered by the United States. Furthermore, the provisional government acquiesced in her surrender in that manner and on those terms, not only by tacit consent, but through the positive acts of some members of that government who urged her peaceable submission, not merely to avoid bloodshed, but because she could place implicit reliance upon the justice of the United States, and that the whole subject would be finally considered at Washington.

Now let's take a closer look at the Newlands Resolution. The Newlands Resolution is a joint resolution. A joint resolution is just a bill with the power to amend the constitution (the Newlands Resolution does not exercise that power). A joint resolution is written by congress, passed by a 3/5 supermajority of the House and a majority of the Senate, then ratified by the President's signature. Now, the constitution doesn't actually have a clause granting the power of annexation. What it does have is Article II Section II, which gives the President (not congress) the power to negotiate treaties with other nations. Out of the 58 territories acquired by the U.S. 56 were acquired via treaties signed by the President and approved by 2/3 majority of the Senate. This is the relevant context which must be considered when we ask if the Newlands Resolution is constitutional or not. The Constitution grants Congress powers which are exclusively and necessarily domestic. In the Appollon (which predates the Newlands Resolution) the United States Supreme Court said as much:

The laws of no nation can justly extend beyond its own territories except so far as regards its own citizens. They can have no force to control the sovereignty or rights of any other nation within its own jurisdiction. And however general and comprehensive the phrases used in our municipal laws may be, they must always be restricted in construction to places and persons, upon whom the legislature has authority and jurisdiction.[7]

It goes on to say that "it would be an unjust interpretation of our laws to give them a meaning so much at variance with the independence and sovereignty of foreign nations."[7]

So the judiciary believes that the resolution is unjust, what about congress? On the House floor, Representative Thomas H. Ball straight up called it illegal as well as unjust:

The annexation of Hawai‘i by joint resolution is unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unwise. …Why, sir, the very presence of this measure here is the result of a deliberate attempt to do unlawfully that which can not be done lawfully[8]

When the Newlands Resolution reached the Senate, Senator Augustus Bacon also said the resolution was illegal:

a joint resolution for the annexation of foreign territory was necessarily and essentially the subject matter of a treaty, and... it could not be accomplished legally and constitutionally by a statute or joint resolution[9]

Not only is the Newlands Resolution illegal and unjust, it is simply invalid. Countless legal scholars have looked at this document and to this day, there is still no explanation as to what constitutional power Congress exercised in passing it. I invite you to take a crack at it and see if you can succeed where countless others have failed. Considering that neither president McKinley nor Cleveland made a peace treaty with the Hawaiian Kingdom following the invasion, Congress' attempt at annexation is doubly illegal due to the two states being in a state of war.

So how did it get passed? McKinley was waging war with the Spanish colonies in the Pacific, so getting 3/5 of the house and a majority of the senate was easy: they wanted a place stage their military.

Of course since there was no lawful treaty of cession, the establishment of PACOM in 1898 and the U.S. military support of the Republic of Hawaii are basically acts of piracy.

Fast-forwarding to 2018, Dr. Alfred M. deZayas, wrote to the State of Hawaii as a United Nations Independent Expert:

As a professor of international law, the former Secretary of the UN Human Rights Committee, co-author of book, The United Nations Human Rights Committee Case Law 1977-2008, and currently serving as the UN Independent Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order, I have come to understand that the lawful political status of the Hawaiian Islands is that of a sovereign nation-state that is under a strange form of occupation by the United States resulting from an illegal military occupation and a fraudulent annexation. As such, international laws (the Hague and Geneva Conventions) require that governance and legal matters within the occupied territory of the Hawaiian Islands must be administered by the application of the laws of the occupied state (in this case, the Hawaiian Kingdom), not the domestic laws of the occupier (the United States).

Further affirming that the annexation IS fraudulent, the U.S. IS illegally occupying the territory of the sovereign Kingdom of Hawaii, and the U.S. must abide by the 1907 Hague Convention, IV, and the 1949 Geneva Convention, IV. "Belligerent occupation does not affect the continuity of the State, even where there exists no government claiming to represent the occupied State."[10]

International law pretty clearly condemns what has transpired in the Kingdom of Hawaii over the last hundred years. We have established the Kingdom of Hawaii is a sovereign state with treaty relations with the United States. In Grover Cleveland's message to congress he specifically points out that the rogue marines which invaded hawaii were neither acting to defend life nor property, and that their only mission was to wage war with the Kingdom to usurp its government and force an annexation. The Newlands Resolution is not only unconstitutional, it is a violation of the Hague and Geneva Conventions regulating the belligerent occupation of a neutral state. Ex injuria jus non oritur. The Newlands Resolution, created the Republic of Hawaii. Subsequent acts of Congress created the Republic government and then changed the Republic's name to "The State of Hawaii". There is no real treaty, there was no annexation, the U.S. presence in Hawaii is illegal according to laws both domestic and international. The U.S. has no claim over Kingdom land, no sovereignty to apply its laws within the Kingdom's territory, and its claims to such fall apart upon all but the shallowest inspections.

Do you respect international law? Grover Cleveland did. In that same message to Congress I quoted earlier, he delivers the most beautiful rhetoric regarding international law that I have ever read.

I mistake the American people if they favor the odious doctrine that there is no such thing as international morality, that there is one law for a strong nation and another for a weak one, and that even by indirection a strong power may with impunity despoil a weak one of its territory.

The law of nations is founded upon reason and justice, and the rules of conduct governing individual relations between citizens or subjects of a civilized state are equally applicable as between enlightened nations. The considerations that international law is without a court for its enforcement, and that obedience to its commands practically depends upon good faith, instead of upon the mandate of a superior tribunal, only give additional sanction to the law itself and brand any deliberate infraction of it not merely as a wrong but as a disgrace. A man of true honor protects the unwritten word which binds his conscience more scrupulously, if possible, than he does the bond a breach of which subjects him to legal liabilities; and the United States in aiming to maintain itself as one of the most enlightened of nations would do its citizens gross injustice if it applied to its international relations any other than a high standard of honor and morality.

[1] - Professor Wright “Changes in the Conception of War,” American Journal of International Law, vol. 18 (1924) (p. 758)

[2] - Professor Hall, International Law (4th ed., 1895)(p. 391)

[3] - Professor Wright, “When does War Exist,” American Journal of International Law, vol. 26(2) (1932) (p. 363)

[4]Professor Oppenheim, International Law, vol. 2 (1906) (p. 104)

[5] - Associate Justice Sutherland, Constitutional Power and World Affairs (1919)(p. 75)

[6] - Annals of Congress, vol. 10, p. 613

[7]- The Appollon, 22 U.S. 362 (1824)

[8] - 31 Cong. Rec. 5975

[9] - 31 Cong. Rec. 6148

[10] - Judge Crawford, The Creation of States in International Law (2nd ed., 2006)(p. 34)