Manifestation of Authority

Build­ing a nation. One step at a time.

Proof can be had from the works on the nat­ural law that lib­erty and inde­pen­dence belong to man by his very nature, and that they can not be taken from him with­out his consent…But the whole body of the Nation, the State, so long as it has not vol­un­tar­ily sub­mit­ted to other men or other Nations, remains absolutely free and inde­pen­dent.
—The Law of Nations (1758)

Hav­ing learned the hid­den sig­nif­i­cance of the U.S. Apol­ogy Res­o­lu­tion, KAONA — an affil­i­a­tion of pri­vate cit­i­zens ded­i­cated to teach­ing all laws rel­e­vant to nation­hood — was cre­ated in June of 1996. Its pri­mary goal was to edu­cate the pub­lic to a process described in pub­lic inter­na­tional law used to restore nations which have suf­fered from for­eign inva­sion and conquest.

The mem­bers of KAONA gave pre­sen­ta­tions in every dis­trict of Hawai’i. The process they advo­cated was described in The Law of Nations, a text on inter­na­tional jurispru­dence. This book was used by the framers of the Amer­i­can Con­sti­tu­tion dur­ing its com­po­si­tion. The mis­sion­ary William Richards taught the law of nations to King Kame­hameha the Third in 1839. KAONA would teach these laws to all who attended their presentations.

Fore­most among these prin­ci­ples was that all nations — like peo­ple — enjoy and exer­cise rights, and are bound to observe the oblig­a­tions cor­re­spond­ing to such rights. Specif­i­cally, a nation has an oblig­a­tion to pre­serve and per­fect its own exis­tence and must exer­cise rights to that end. In order to revive the author­ity that lay sus­pended for more than a cen­tury, the descen­dants of the founders of the King­dom of Hawai’i had to reclaim the proper sta­tus of nationhood.

Indi­vid­ual kanaka maoli came from every island to par­tic­i­pate in a series of con­ven­tions ded­i­cated to rais­ing a gov­ern­ment iden­ti­cal to the one over­thrown. It was hoped that enough peo­ple would vol­un­teer to tem­porar­ily occupy the high offices of the leg­isla­tive, exec­u­tive and judi­cial branches.

This would accom­plish two objec­tives: con­firm the sta­tus of being the proper claimant to nation­hood, and lay the ground­work to nat­u­ral­ize all those who were will­ing to become citizens.

Reviv­ing the government

On March 13, 1999, del­e­gates rep­re­sent­ing all twenty-four dis­tricts of the King­dom of Hawai’i attended a con­ven­tion in Punalu’u, a com­mu­nity on the north­ern side of the island of O’ahu.  Twenty-four kanaka maoli vol­un­teered to serve as their dis­tricts’ rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives pro tem. Another twenty-four vol­un­teered to serve in the House of Nobles pro tem, com­plet­ing the bicam­eral par­lia­ment of the Hawai­ian government.

In accor­dance with the Hawai­ian King­dom Con­sti­tu­tion, this leg­is­la­ture elected a monarch pro tem who, in turn, appointed indi­vid­u­als to the Exec­u­tive Cab­i­net pro tem and the Supreme Court pro tem.

With this tem­po­rary gov­ern­ment of vol­un­teers in place, these fifty-six offi­cers for­mally agreed to not exer­cise any of the pow­ers of their offices. Their sole respon­si­bil­ity was to sign up all those res­i­dents of Hawai’i who were will­ing to aban­don their cur­rent nation­al­ity and become cit­i­zens of the King­dom of Hawai’i.

Iden­ti­fy­ing the population

Another law prin­ci­ple states that cit­i­zen­ship is based on alle­giance, not race. Hawai’i is a land of many eth­nic­i­ties. The pro tem gov­ern­ment decided that the offer to become a cit­i­zen would be extended not only to kanaka maoli, but also to Hawai­ians (all those res­i­dents born in Hawai’i not of abo­rig­i­nal Hawai­ian ances­try) and to for­eign­ers (all those res­i­dents born else­where not of abo­rig­i­nal Hawai­ian ancestry).

Through­out the year, the pro tem offi­cers con­ducted a pub­lic­ity cam­paign for this rein­state­ment ini­tia­tive. Ads were placed in the clas­si­fied and pub­lic notice sec­tions of each island’s news­pa­pers. Infor­ma­tional pam­phlets with con­tact num­bers were dis­trib­uted to the gen­eral pop­u­lace. Two or three times a week, the pro tem offi­cers and other vol­un­teers waved signs at busy inter­sec­tions in their home towns dur­ing peak traf­fic times.

Reg­is­tra­tion booths were set up in pub­lic places so that all who were ready to com­mit could apply to this process. Since they had the inher­ent right to return to their nation, the kanaka maoli who signed up com­pleted Appli­ca­tions of Repa­tri­a­tion. Those Hawai­ians and for­eign­ers who chose to com­mit their loy­alty to this process com­pleted Appli­ca­tions of
Nat­u­ral­iza­tion. Copies of these appli­ca­tions were then sent to U.S. Sec­re­tary of State Madeleine Albright.

The eli­gi­ble vot­ers result­ing from this cit­i­zen­ship drive were qual­i­fied to cast bal­lots in the first par­lia­men­tary elec­tion of the King­dom of Hawai’i in over a cen­tury. Affi­davits of Can­di­dacy to the Office of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive or the Office of Noble were made avail­able to all those who were inter­ested in serv­ing as a leg­is­la­tor. The dead­line to par­tic­i­pate in this elec­tion as a voter and/or a can­di­date was Sat­ur­day, Octo­ber 30, 1999.

Exer­cis­ing the sovereignty

On Sat­ur­day, Novem­ber 6, 1999, all twenty-four vot­ing dis­tricts selected the indi­vid­ual they wanted to serve them in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The vot­ers of each island also selected those indi­vid­u­als who would serve them in the at-large seats of the House of Nobles. The elec­tion of these forty-eight leg­is­la­tors marked the return of the leg­isla­tive branch of the true and right­ful gov­ern­ment of Hawai’i.

Among the res­o­lu­tions passed by the tem­po­rary gov­ern­ment was the sus­pen­sion of the offices of the exec­u­tive and judi­cial branches upon the eve of the par­lia­men­tary elec­tion. Unlike the March 13^th con­ven­tion, the elected leg­is­la­ture would not imme­di­ately rein­state the exec­u­tive branch by installing a monarch. It became their duty to deter­mine what form of gov­ern­ment the cit­i­zens wanted: con­sti­tu­tional monar­chy or par­lia­men­tary democracy.

The leg­is­la­tors’ and cit­i­zens’ pri­mary respon­si­bil­ity was to address this con­cern by updat­ing the Hawai­ian King­dom Con­sti­tu­tion for the first time in 113 years.