country where a man would be allowed to vote, to seek for office, to hold the most responsible of positions, without becoming naturalized, and reserving to himself the privilege of protection under the guns of a foreign man-of-war at any moment when he should quarrel with the government under which he lived? Yet this is exactly what the quasi Americans, who call themselves Hawaiians now and Americans when it suits them, claimed the right to do at Honolulu.
The right to grant a constitution to the nation has been, since the very first one was granted, a prerogative of the Hawaiian sovereigns. The constitution of 1840 was drawn at Lahaina by a council aided by missionary graduates, but promulgated by the king without any appeal to other authority. That of 1852 was drawn by Dr. Judd, John II., and Chief Justice Lee. It was submitted to the legislature, not to the people, and, as amended by the members, became the law of the land. In 1864 there was an attempt to hold a constitutional convention: but, as I have shown in this history, Prince Lot, or, as he then was, Kamehameha V., dissolved the convention, because dissatisfied with its inaction, and in a week’s time declared the former constitution abrogated; and, without asking a vote from anybody, gave the land a new and ably drawn constitution, under which the country was prosperously ruled for twenty-three years, or until it was overthrown by aliens determined to coerce my brother. Then followed their own draft of 1887, which also was never ratified by any deliberative assembly.
Such, in brief, is the history of constitution making
