Hawaiian Kingdom Blog
Weblog of the acting government of the Hawaiian Kingdom presently operating within the occupied State of the Hawaiian Islands.
After two failed attempts to acquire the Hawaiian Islands by a treaty of cession as required by international law, the U.S. Congress “unilaterally” enacted a Joint Resolution purporting
to annex the Hawaiian Islands, which was signed into law by President
McKinley on July 7, 1898 during the Spanish-American War as a war
measure.
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On June 15, 1898, during debates over the joint resolution annexing Hawai‘i in the House of Representatives, Congressman Thomas H. Ball
(D-Texas) stated, “The annexation of Hawai‘i by joint resolution is
unconstitutional, unnecessary, and unwise.
If the first proposition be
true, sworn to support the Constitution, we should inquire no further. I
challenge not the advocates of Hawaiian annexation, but those who
advocate annexation in the form now presented, to show warrant or
authority in our organic law for such acquisition of territory. To do so
will be not only to subvert the supreme law of the land but to strike
down every precedent in our history. …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.”
And on June 20, 1898, during Senate debates over the joint resolution annexing Hawai‘i, Senator Augustus Bacon
(D-Georgia) stated, “That a joint resolution for the annexation of
foreign territory was necessarily and essentially the subject matter of a
treaty, and that it could not be accomplished legally and
constitutionally by a statute or joint resolution.
If Hawaii was to be
annexed, it ought certainly to be annexed by a constitutional method;
and if by a constitutional method it can not be annexed, no Senator
ought to desire its annexation sufficiently to induce him to give his
support to an unconstitutional measure.” Senator Bacon further
explained, “Now, a statute is this: A Statute is a rule of conduct laid
down by the legislative department, which has its effect upon all of
those within the jurisdiction. In other words, a statute passed by the
Congress of the United States is obligatory upon every person who is a
citizen of the United States or a resident therein.
A statute can not go
outside the jurisdiction of the United States and be binding upon the
subjects of another power. It takes the consent of the subjects of the
other power, speaking or giving their consent through their duly
authorized government, to be bound by a certain thing which is enacted
in this country; and therein comes the necessity for a treaty. ”
The United States Congress was fully aware that a joint resolution is
not a cession of territory by treaty, but only an opinion or will of
the U.S. Congress limited in authority to territory of the United
States. The Hawaiian Kingdom was not annexed to the United States and
remained an independent, but occupied State.
Usurping Hawaiian sovereignty, U.S. President McKinley signed into United States law An Act To provide a government for the Territory of Hawai’i on April 30, 1900; and on March 18, 1959, U.S. President Eisenhower signed into United States law An Act To provide for the admission of the State of Hawai’i into the Union.
According to the United States Supreme Court, in United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp.,
(1936), “Neither the Constitution nor the laws passed in pursuance of
it have any force in foreign territory unless in respect of our own
citizens; and operations of the nation in such territory must be
governed by treaties, international understandings and compacts, and the
principles of international law…. [T]he court recognized, and in each
of the cases cited [involving the exercise of the sovereign power of the
United States] found, the warrant for its conclusions not in the
provisions of the Constitution, but in the law of nations”.
United States laws are not only limited to United States territory,
but the 1898 joint resolution of annexation, the 1900 Territorial Act,
and the 1959 Hawai‘i Statehood Act stand in direct violation of the 1893
Lili`uokalani assignment and the Restoration Agreement, being international compacts, the 1907 Hague Convention, IV, and the 1949 Geneva Convention, IV.
According to the United Nations War Crimes Commission “war crimes” include:
- Usurpation of sovereignty during occupation;
- Deportation of civilians;
- Compulsory enlistment of soldiers among the inhabitants of occupied territory;
- Denationalizing the inhabitants of occupied territory;
- Confiscation of property;
- Exaction of illegitimate or of exorbitant contributions and requisitions;
- Wanton devastation and destruction of religious, charitable, educational and historical buildings and monuments.
Usurpation of sovereignty
is to illegally take by force the sovereignty of another country.
International tribunals and national tribunals prosecuted both military
and civilians after World War I and World War II for these war crimes.
The State of Hawai’i government,
established by an Act of Congress in 1959, is a usurpation of
sovereignty during occupation and therefore not only illegal but also
constitutes a war crime.
