The following book was found at the Archives.
Every Kanaka Maoli needs to do their genealogies to maintain their claims to their families lands. If you don't already know it, the U.S./U.S.A., their entities State of Hawaii, OHA/Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Hawaiian Homes, Kanaiolowalu/Hawaiian Rolls are looking to ASSUME everyone's lands, mineral rights, water rights, etc.
What better way to counter all of this then maintain your private properties instead of allowing ILLEGAL FOREIGNERS to assume your ancestral rights to YOUR properties?
Replies
Mahalo nui for sharing your testimony Professor Williamson B.C. Chang
Williamson B.C. Chang, Professor of Law, University of Hawaii School of Law; Comments on
Department of Interior ANPR Identifier 1090-AB05, Hawaii State Capitol Honolulu, Hawaii
June 23, 2014
Testimony of Williamson B.C. Chang
Professor of Law at the William S. Richardson
School of Law, University of Hawai’i at Manoa
June 23, 2014
Hawaii State Capitol
Honolulu, Hawaii
Re: Comments on Advance Notice of Proposed rulemaking; Solicitation of Comments; Office of the Secretary, Department of Interior Regulation Identifier Number 1090-AB05
The Department of Interior of the United States Government is “seeking input solely on questions related to the potential administrative rule to facilitate the re-establishment of a government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community.” The Department is seeking specific comments on five threshold questions. All questions are directed at the establishment of a government to government relationship. DOI does not propose a specific rule in this request. Nonetheless, it is evident that the Department is seeking comments on whether Native Hawaiians should be recognized as a Federally Recognized Indian Tribe by administrative process. If this is correct, the goal is to achieve what the “Akaka” bill proposed. Congress refused to pass that bill. It appears that the Department is seeking to change certain administrative rules that prevent Native Hawaiians from being administratively recognized. It is assumed that this is the underlying nature and objective of DOI’s request.
. Introduction:
I have been a Professor of Law at the University of Hawaii School of Law since 1976 and teach in the areas of Hawaiian Legal History, Legal Aspects of Water Rights in Hawaii, Conflicts of Law and Business Associations. I will supplement these comments within the noted time frame with further written testimony.
I have a very brief moment to make my comments here so I will limit my remarks to one main point. The United States Department of Interior lacks subject matter territorial jurisdiction
over the Hawaiian Islands. This is not a claim based on International Law, but one that rests in the laws of the United States. Specifically, three laws of the United States affirmatively and explicitly state that the Department, as well as the United States in general, as well as the State of Hawaii does not possess subject matter jurisdiction, namely territorial jurisdiction over the Hawaiian Islands.
Of course, this lack of subject matter jurisdiction has been universal, applicable to all acts of the United States, its courts, and executive agencies, as well as State and County political subdivisions for a very long time. The failure to note this defect does not mean that its applicability is waived or it has less effect today. Subject matter jurisdiction is always at issue.
It can be raised at any time. It can be raised even after transactions or actions have been undertaken and completed. The failure of residents of the Hawaiians to object to subject matter jurisdiction does not deny them that ability to do so today.
Native Hawaiians, in particular, have only begun to learn of this defect. This fact is borne out in the letter sent by Chief Executive Officer of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Dr. Crabbe, to Secretary of State John Kerry on May 5, 2014, which listed four questions. Those questions are based on testimony and presentations given at a forum held on April 17, 2014 which challenges the jurisdiction of the United States under both International and United States law. I was one of those who testified on April 17th. I present to this body, in a shortened version, the points I made on April 17th.
The lack of jurisdiction of the United States and the Department of Interior is based on two very simple points. First, the United States claims jurisdiction over the territory of Hawaii based on the legal effect of the Joint Resolution of 1898, 30 Stat 750. Second, the United States claims jurisdiction by way of the Act of Admission of 1959, admitting Hawaii as a State. This testimony asserts that:
1) The Joint Resolution of 1898 had no power to acquire the Hawaiian Islands as territory of the United States, and that;
2) Section Two of the Act of Admission by which the Territory of Hawaii was admitted as a State confirms and thus admits that the State of Hawaii does not include the Hawaiian Islands.
II. The Joint Resolution of 1898 had no power to acquire the Hawaiian Islands as territory of the United States.
The Joint Resolution was not a treaty. A Treaty of Annexation drafted and signed by representatives of Hawaii and the United States was proposed in 1897 but was never ratified by the United States Senate. Article VII of that Treaty required United States consent be in the form of formal Senate ratification as required by Article II of the United States Constitution. The failure of the Treaty led the McKinley Administration to seek a Joint Resolution of Congress to acquire Hawaii. The only basis by which the United States or any country can acquire additional territory is by the 1) the doctrine of discovery, 2) conquest or 3) Treaty. The doctrine of discovery does not apply as Hawaii was a sovereign nation. It had full dominion over its own lands. The United States did not “conquer” Hawaii as understood by international law of the time. The United States has never claimed that it conquered the Hawaiian Islands. There is no treaty of annexation between the United States and Hawaii.
After the failure of the Treaty of 1897, the McKinley administration pulled an “end run” choosing to acquire Hawaii by joint resolution. A joint resolution requires a mere majority of both houses to become law. The United States declared war on Spain in April of 1898. The McKinley administration sought Hawaii as a base necessary for the invasion of the Spanish Colony, the Philippines. A special advisor to the President, John Foster, suggested a Joint Resolution--a bill or act, simply declaring that Hawaii was territory of the United States. Foster had floated this idea in a speech in 1895 on the basis that the annexation of Texas established a precedent. Foster was wrong. Texas was not annexed by Joint Resolution. Texas was acquired by an unwritten treaty, valid under the law of nations, by which there was a complete and perfect meeting of the minds of the United States and the Republic of Texas. Under Article IV of the United States Constitution it is Congress that has the power to admit new states. The constitutional power to admit Texas as a state is vested in Congress, not in the President and the Senate under the foreign affairs power. Texas was a Republic. It was a separate independent nation from the United States. Texas could not become a State and part of the United States except by treaty. Such a treaty was concluded when Texas agreed to the terms of statehood and Congress accepted those terms.
McKinley followed Foster’s advice and sought to acquire the Hawaiian Islands and the nation of Hawaii by a joint resolution. A joint resolution, called the “Newlands resolution,” was introduced in the House of Representatives in May of 1898. The Resolution passed the House by a majority. It moved to the Senate in June. The President was confident that, in a time of war, he could secure a majority of the Senate to approve the joint resolution. A treaty acquiring Hawaii required a two thirds vote of the Senate. A bill purporting to acquire Hawaii required a mere majority.
Opposition in the Senate was vigorous. Senators filibustered to block the joint resolution. Some 21,000 Native Hawaiians had signed petitions opposing the annexation treaty. Their petition was presented in the debate on the joint resolution. The majority of the electorate in Hawaii was opposed to becoming part of the United States.
The most important argument against the Joint Resolution was the simple observation that a Joint Resolution has no power to acquire the Hawaiian Islands. The Joint Resolution was not a treaty. Only a treaty could acquire the territorial dominion of another sovereign and independent nation. This point was made repeatedly by a number of Senators. Only two Senators supported the Joint Resolution. One, from Ohio, claimed that the resolution was a treaty-and only needed the ratification of one party—that of the United States. Another Senator from Nevada made the ridiculous claim that the United States could “annex the world.”
On July 6, 1898, the Joint Resolution passed by a majority in the Senate, but did not obtain the two thirds of Senators present as required for a treaty. The President signed the Joint Resolution on July 7th. Ceremonies were held in Hawaii on August 12, 1898 which purported to transfer sovereignty and public property from the Nation of Hawaii to the United States.
Over the past 100 years the United States has relied on three theories as to how the Joint Resolution acquired the Hawaiian Islands. Each theory asserts that the Joint Resolution was in fact a kind of “treaty” by which there is an offer of cession from Hawaii, and later, an acceptance of that offer by the United States.
First, if one looks at the language of the joint resolution, the first two paragraphs were copied from the Treaty of 1897. The joint resolution incorporates the language of the treaty by asserting, in paragraph one that the Nation of Hawaii, “has already ceded to the United States, by the Constitution of the Republic of Hawaii, the sovereignty and public lands of Hawaii.” Thus, Hawaii having offered sovereignty and these lands, the United States need only “accept” such an offer.
Yet, there is no offer of cession by the Republic of Hawaii. The United States, in the Joint Resolution claims that the offer of a cession can be found in the Constitution of the Republic of Hawaii. Yet, the Constitution of Hawaii provides no such “cession.” The Constitution of the Republic of Hawaii simply authorizes the President of the Republic to enter into a draft treaty of a political or commercial nature with the United States. The Republic of Hawaii ceded nothing prior to the enactment of the Joint Resolution. It is the Joint Resolution; in paragraph one that claims Hawaii cedes its dominion to the United States. That Resolution and that language were drafted by the United States.
Second, some have asserted that the Joint Resolution and the Treaty must be read together. These persons argue that the while the United States never ratified by the Treaty of 1897, the Joint Resolution completes that ratification. In other words, by putting the two instruments together a treaty of cession was completed. This “two instruments” claim is easily defeated. Article VII of the Treaty of 1897 requires that the United States specifically ratify the treaty by the terms in the United States constitution---by a vote of two thirds of the Senators present. Instead the United States passed a joint resolution---by a majority of the House and the Senate. The United States itself, by the terms of the Treaty agreed to Article VII. Thus Article VII is binding on the United States. There is only one method by which the United States could ratify the treaty: ratification by the Senate as required by the Constitution.
The third view uses the precedent of Texas as the basis for a treaty between Hawaii and the United States. As in the case of Texas, it is argued that Hawaii became territory of the United States because there was an unwritten treaty between the United States and the Republic of Hawaii. Such an unwritten treaty requires a perfect meeting of the minds. However, the historical record shows that there were vast disagreements between the Republic of Hawaii and the United States. The United States never ratified the Treaty. The Republic of Hawaii was never a party consenting to the Joint Resolution. There were numerous disagreements and objections by the Republic of Hawaii to the Joint Resolution. The historical record does not demonstrate the perfect meeting of minds necessary for such an unwritten treaty. The disagreements between the two nations resulted in confusion. The confusion after 1898 as to whether United States law applied or the law of the Republic remained led to a breakdown in civil society. This led to an “interregnum and a plea to Congress to pass the Organic Act quickly. In conclusion, the Joint Resolution of 1898 30 Stat. 750 had no power to acquire and did not acquire the Hawaiian Islands as territory of the United States.
III. Section Two of the Act of Admission by which the Territory of Hawaii was admitted as a State confirms and thus admits that the State of Hawaii does not include the Hawaiian Islands.
As to this point, this is the testimony on Section Two of the Act of Admission that I presented at a form held at the University of Hawaii School of Law, April 17, 2014 as to “Alternate Visions of Sovereignty.
“I am here tonight to tell you that the United States does admit that it has no legal jurisdiction, no de jure jurisdiction over the Hawaiian Islands. This admission, this admission against de jure sovereignty rests in the most important law passed by the United States as to Hawaii---the Act of Admission. This is the first time you shall hear this: The Act of Admission, by its section two did not acquire the Hawaiian Islands as territory of the State of Hawaii. The proof lies in the act itself, section two of the Act Admission---that purports to define the boundaries of the State of Hawaii says as follows:
Section 2 of the Act of Admission
Section 2. The State of Hawaii shall consist of all the islands, together with their appurtenant reefs and territorial waters, included in the Territory of Hawaii on the date of enactment of this Act, except the atoll known as Palmyra Island, together with its appurtenant reefs and territorial waters, but said State shall not be deemed to include the Midway Islands, Johnston Island, Sand Island (offshore from Johnston Island), or Kingman Reef, together with their appurtenant reefs and territorial waters.
What was admitted in 1959----as territory of the State? There is no mention of the main islands: Oahu, Maui, Hawaii, Lanai, Molokai, or Kauai. The only islands mentioned are those that are to be excluded.
If we study this section carefully, it states that the islands and waters in the new State of Hawaii were the islands included in the Territory of Hawaii. In order to discover what islands were included in the Territory of Hawaii one must look back to 1900 and the Organic Act. There, in section two of that act, Congress defined what was in the Organic Act: We find that the only islands included in the Territory of Hawaii were those islands which the United States acquired from Hawaii by Joint Resolution:
Section Two: Territory of Hawaii. That the islands acquired by the United States of America under an Act of Congress entitled Joint Resolution to provide for annexing the Hawaiian Islands to the United Sates, approved July seventh, eighteen hundred and ninety-eight, shall be known as the “Territory of Hawaii.”
Now, as stated earlier the joint resolution did not acquire the Hawaiian Islands as territory of the United States. No nation can, by a mere act of its legislature or parliament, pass a law acquiring the dominion of another sovereign nation. Sovereignty is the absolute legal power of each nation over its own territory. The United States has absolute sovereignty. The Nation of Hawaii has such sovereignty. Neither one can, by its own law, acquire the territory of the other. That is the equality of sovereignty. This is what is missing as we move forward. We have the apology resolution. But that is not enough. That is the overthrow. Yet, we have no explanation as to how Hawaii was acquired. There is no jointly ratified treaty-- the treaty was never ratified by the United States. I say again, the treaty was never ratified by the United States. It is the United States, by the terms of its constitution that could not acquire Hawaii---it didn’t and those who drafted the Organic Act in 1900 and the Act of Statehood in 1959---knew this as well. So, the agents of the United States engaged in deception—writing and passing statutes that appear to acquire the Hawaiian Islands---but did not.
IV. The Plebiscite of June 27, 1959
Despite the evidence showing the United States lacks both de jure and de facto jurisdiction, many have stated that the plebiscite of 1959 reveals that an overwhelming number of the people of the Hawaiian Islands, and Native Hawaiians as well, supported Statehood and United States jurisdiction.
The truth is that the effect of the plebiscite has been misrepresented. While it is true that the first question in the plebiscite did ask if the voter supported statehood, the second question, took away United States jurisdiction. The section question effectively asked the people of Hawaii to approve the new section two of the Admission Act---which excluded the Hawaiian Islands as territory of the United States.
On June 27, 1959, the people of Hawaii were asked to vote in a so-called “plebiscite” as to whether they approved statehood. 94 per cent responded by voting
“yes” as to all three questions. Yet, the plebiscite was required because the Admission Act changed the territorial boundary descriptions as to those proposed by the Proposed Constitution for the State of Hawaii, adopted in the 1949 constitution. Thus, the three questions voted on as of June 27, 1959 were:
1) “Shall Hawaii be admitted immediately into the union as a State?”
2) “Do you approve of the new boundaries of the state as fixed by the statehood bill?”
3) [As described in an article by Fred Bennion of the Honolulu Advertiser] “Question no. 3 is more comprehensive, it requests approval of numerous provisions of the statehood act. The most important of these pertains to disposition of land owned or controlled by the United States.
As to question two, which was critical for the admission of the state, Mr. Bennion stated: “The danger lies in the possibility that the voter having answered the first question in the affirmative, may leave the other two propositions unanswered. A majority vote approving all three is required. One “No” on any of the questions is equivalent to a vote against statehood.”
Mr. Bennion goes on to say about Question Two: “The voter should have no objection to the boundaries. They are practically the same as for the Territory. All eight major islands are included. . . [This last statement is clearly false].”
The approval of the three questions was submitted by the United States to the General Assembly of the United Nations such that the Decolonization Committee of the General Assembly would remove Hawaii from the list of “non self-governing territories.” Efforts are being made by independence groups to have that decision of the United Nations rescinded, Recognition that Question Two was misleading will add strength to that claim.”
VI. Conclusion:
The United States Department of Interior has come to Hawaii basically asking how it can help in establishing a government to government relationship with the Hawaiian people. It can “help” by first acknowledging and admitting certain truths:
First, Hawaii was a state in international law and had a government to government relationship with the United States---as equal states under the law of nations.
Second, the United States enacted congressional legislation that it claimed acquired the Hawaiian Islands as territory of the United States. This is false and the United States has admitted this in two key sections of its laws as to Hawaii: Sections two of the Organic Act and the Act of Admission. Both acts explicitly exclude the Hawaiian Islands from the territory of the United States and the State of Hawaii.
Third, the Department of Interior comes here today to seek advice as to rules that would ignore these truths and supposedly re-establish a government to government relationship with the Native Hawaiian people with Native Hawaiians as a subjugated community, not independent and not equal to the United States.
In essence, the Department of Interior asks us to help them draft rules by which we, as Native Hawaiians go backwards, ignore the existence of the Kingdom of Hawaii, ignore, the failure of the United States to acquire the Hawaiian Islands, ignore the effective occupation of the Hawaiian Islands by the United States, and give them our stamp of approval for what they have done to us over the past 120 years.
Perhaps we were ignorant of the truth for the past 120 years. Perhaps we have forgotten and now only now remember what our kupuna in the Kue petitions fought for and won. Yet, today we have a new generation of scholars and leaders. We have learned of the tricks and the lies, and the misrepresentations. If the future of Hawaii must begin sometime, and someplace, it shall begin here. We are not an Indian tribe, and we don’t want to be “recognized” as one by the United States. Where once we said “yes” “yes” “yes” we now say “no” “no” “ no”---no to federal help, no to federal recognition and no to occupation.
Imua! Aloha Ke Akua!
Current Discussion of Facebook affecting Genealogies, Birth Certificates, Death Certificates, Marriage Certificates, All Lands in the Hawaiian Islands, etc.:
No such thing we are a People Called Hawaiians From Hawaii part of Polynesia. Anyways my Certificate came properly stated ethic Hawaiian / White. They only had when I was born Black/ White /Hispanic/
places to mark so I was left blank. Interesting. Many of my cousins still have blank or other written not Hawaiian as they were also Army Babies born in U.S.
Most of U.S. Thinks we're like Indians OMG
LETS DO THIS ~
EDUCATING EVERYONE IS THE KEY !
Don Ho - My Little Grass Shack - Hawaiian War Chant
Hawaiian Genealogy Research For Those in Hawaii, the United States and Abroad..........compiled by Amelia Gora (2013)
duress legal definition of duress. duress synonyms by the Free ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXapbOq1uo0 My Hawaii by the Rascals ---
Our Kanaka Maoli Hawaii that is, the True Land and Title Owners
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next