You know, usually when you're... Well, they're
the rules of the game. You play out the clock,
and if you're losing at the final buzzer, you
don't get to just turn to the referee and say,
actually, let's make this a sudden death overtime
where my team only needs half a point to win.
I mean, that would cause an absolute... riot
in the stands. Right. You can't just rewrite
the fundamental mechanics of how a winner is
decided purely because, you know, you didn't
get the score you needed. But then you look at
the mechanics of late 19th century geopolitics
and suddenly that is exactly what happens. It
really is. We are looking at a historical landscape
where the rules of how a nation expands its borders
were just entirely rewritten mid game. So welcome
to today's deep dive. Our mission for this one
is to pull apart this incredibly obscure procedural
maneuver that resulted in the U .S. annexation
of Hawaii in 1898. Which is a lot more dramatic
than it sounds. Oh, totally. We're going to dig
into the political workarounds, the strategic
wartime math that basically changed everything,
and the fierce organized resistance that surrounded
it all. OK, let's unpack this because Newland's
resolution sounds like a boring, dusty, bureaucratic
document, but it's actually the center of a massive
geopolitical drama. Yeah, it really is. I mean,
this document represents a very specific friction
point in history. It's the exact moment where
global military strategy and this burgeoning
desire for an American empire just collided head
on with indigenous sovereignty. And in doing
so, it totally upended the established legal
frameworks of the United States. So to understand
the sheer audacity of the Newland's resolution
we actually have to start like a year earlier
in 1897 with this spectacular political failure.
Huge failure. Right because President William
McKinley desperately wanted to annex the Republic
of Hawaii and he tried to do this the traditional
way by passing a formal treaty of annexation.
But to ratify a treaty the US Constitution requires
a two -thirds supermajority in the Senate. Exactly.
And the framers of the Constitution intentionally
set that bar extremely high. Right. So a president
couldn't just absorb foreign territories on a
whim. Exactly. And McKinley simply didn't have
the votes. The treaty failed. It never went into
effect. So that should have been it, right? Under
normal constitutional circumstances, yes, the
failure of that treaty should have been the end
of the conversation. I mean, the established
legally sound mechanism for acquiring foreign
territory was the treaty process. The Senate
said no, which meant the acquisition was dead
in the water. But the expansionist. simply refused
to take no for an answer. So instead of accepting
defeat, in 1898, Representative Francis G. Newlands,
who was a member of the Silver Party from Nevada,
by the way, he drafts what becomes known as the
Newlands Resolution. Right. Now, this wasn't
a treaty. It was a joint resolution of Congress.
And the magic of a joint resolution is that it
only requires a simple majority in both the House
and the Senate, plus the president's signature.
What's fascinating here is how bypassing that
traditional treaty process fundamentally altered
the rules of territorial acquisition. Yeah, because
it's completely different. Exactly. A joint resolution
is typically a tool used for domestic legislation.
You use it to pass a temporary budget extension
or to commission a new post office or something.
A law to absorb a country. Right. It is not designed
for absorbing an independent sovereign nation.
By using a domestic legislative tool to execute
a massive foreign policy acquisition, Congress
essentially engineered this breathtaking legal
workaround. They bypassed the two requirement
entirely. I mean, the resolution cruised through
the House by a vote of 209 to 91, with the vast
majority of that support like 182 votes coming
from Republicans. Yeah. And then it moved to
the Senate, where it passed 42 to 21, which is
incredibly ironic because that Senate vote of
42 to 21 actually happens to be exactly a two
-thirds majority. which is just wild to think
about. It is. They finally got the supermajority
they failed to get a year earlier. But because
they had literally changed the rules of the game,
they didn't even need it to be a supermajority
anymore. So McKinley signed into law on July
7th, 1898. It feels exactly like failing a strict
pass fail exam and then just convincing the school
administration to change the grading rubric.
So you can take a wildly easier test, but still
demand the exact same diploma at the end. I mean,
did anyone actually believe this was legally
sound? Well, no. I mean, that specific maneuver
remains a major foundational point of contention
in Hawaiian sovereignty movements today. Legal
scholars and sovereignty advocates argue the
mechanism itself was fundamentally invalid. Because
it was a domestic law. Exactly. You cannot use
a domestic law to annex a foreign country. The
legal foundation of the entire acquisition was
built on a deliberate procedural evasion. which
makes perfect sense when you look at the mechanics
of it. But legal loopholes only work if you have
the political capital to force them through.
So why did Congress suddenly agree to use this
controversial loophole just a year after flat
out rejecting the actual treaty? Because the
math in Congress doesn't just change that drastically
without a massive external shock. Right, and
the math changed because the entire globe caught
fire. In April of 1898, the United States went
to war with Spain. The Spanish -American War.
Exactly. And this is where the sheer physical
geography of Hawaii becomes like its own worst
enemy. Because the Republic of Hawaii officially
declared its neutrality in the conflict between
the U .S. and Spain. Officially, yes. But in
practice, they threw that official neutrality
aside to help United States troops. Once Admiral
George Dewey secured his major naval victory
in the Philippines, Honolulu became this absolutely
vital irreplaceable mid -ocean stopover for American
troops heading across the vast Pacific Ocean.
Right, and those American soldiers were enthusiastically
welcomed. I mean, they were given a real tangible
taste of Hawaiian hospitality. The American colony
that was already established there went out of
its way to aid the troops. Supplying them in
everything. Providing supplies, rest, logistical
support, all of it. And this incredible level
of assistance won widespread, glowing approval
back on the United States mainland. Suddenly,
the abstract concept of Hawaii became very real
and very helpful to the American public. Here's
where it gets really interesting, though, by
being hospitable, by opening their ports and
being overwhelmingly helpful to the American
war effort. Did Hawaii's actions actually doom
their own independence? Oh, that's a great question.
Because all they really did was prove undeniably
exactly how valuable they were as a mid -ocean
naval base. They showed the US military that
they were an indispensable asset. If we connect
this to the bigger picture, you see the exact
logic that President McKinley and highly influential
naval strategists like Alfred T. Mahan were actively
pushing at the time. Right. The Spanish -American
war proved to the expansionists that if the United
States was going to evolve into a global empire
with reach across the oceans, it absolutely needed
permanent Pacific bases. Because of the coal.
Exactly. Coal -powered naval ships simply could
not cross the Pacific without stopping to refuel.
Strategic military value entirely crushed any
lingering domestic political opposition in Washington.
And McKinley didn't just rely on the positive
military value, right? He leaned heavily into
international fear mongering. He absolutely did.
He started arguing that Hawaii was too fragile
to survive on its own and that Japan might just
gobble up the territory. I mean, at the time,
the ethnic Japanese population of the islands
was already around 25 percent. Right. It was
significant. So McKinley painted this picture.
that if Japan took Hawaii, they would completely
dominate the Pacific, permanently ruining any
American hopes for large scale lucrative trade
with Asia. He framed it as a dire strategic necessity.
It was essentially an argument of eat or be eaten
on the global stage. But, you know, while mainland
politicians are standing in Washington looking
at giant maps, talking about global strategic
value and patting themselves on the back for
finding clever legal loopholes. The reality on
the ground in Hawaii was starkly different. It
was a completely different world. And the way
this is often historically glossed over makes
it sound like a mutual agreement. But that couldn't
be further from the truth. No, not at all. The
annexation occurred without any kind of democratic
referendum. The Native people living in the islands
were never asked to vote on becoming part of
the United States. Which is wild. They were entirely
excluded from the decision -making process regarding
their own homeland. They were incredibly vocal,
organized, and sophisticated in their opposition.
Between September and October of 1897, Native
groups, specifically the Hwiloha 'aina and Hwikulaina,
organized a massive grassroots petition draft.
Yeah, the scale of this was incredible. We were
talking about people traveling across the islands,
going door to door, village to village. They
gather 21 ,269 signatures on a formal petition
against annexation. Wow. And to put that in perspective,
at the time, the total population of Native Hawaiians
was only about 39 ,000. So that's... significantly
more than half, more than half of the entire
Native population putting their names on a legal
document explicitly rejecting American rule.
And it wasn't just the grassroots level either.
Queen Lelio Kalani, the deposed monarch, she
also engaged in fierce diplomatic resistance.
She traveled to Washington and sent a formal,
highly detailed letter of protest to the United
States House of Representatives, stating unequivocally
that her homeland was being taken against the
will of its people. Just putting it directly
on the record. Exactly. and reminding them that
her throne had been taken illegally in the first
place. The visual of the actual transfer of sovereignty
is just devastating to read about. It took place
on August 12th, 1898, on the steps of Iolani
Palace. The Hawaiian flag was lowered and the
United States flag was raised. And absolutely
none of the former Hawaiian leadership attended
the ceremony. They boycotted it entirely. Entirely.
There were no gala celebrations that night. The
historical accounts describe a heavy atmosphere
of sadness, bitterness, and deep resentment.
The American authorities were actually terrified
that the frustrated Hawaiians were going to riot
in the streets. They were bracing for violence,
yeah. I mean, taking over a country without asking
the residents, blatantly ignoring a petition
signed by over half the native population, embracing
for violent riots instead of throwing celebratory
parades, that sounds exactly like a hostile corporate
takeover just played out on a geopolitical scale
with military warships. That analogy captures
the mechanics perfectly. It is crucial to understand
that the Hawaiian petition wasn't just passive
discontent or grumbling. Right. It was a highly
organized, heavily documented and near majority
legal resistance. The native Hawaiians played
entirely by the established rules of international
diplomacy and petition. And the U .S. just ignored
it. The United States Congress simply looked
at those rules, looked at that overwhelming opposition
and chose to override it because the strategic
value of the islands outweighed the localized
resistance. But the resistance wasn't just localized
to the islands, right? This aggressive expansion
triggered an absolute ideological civil war back
on the US mainland. You had imperialists versus
anti -imperialists fighting for what felt like
the very soul and future of the American experiment.
The debate was fierce and incredibly polarizing.
Former President Grover Cleveland vehemently
opposed the annexation. When he previously took
office in 1893, he actually rescinded an earlier
annexation proposal. He viewed the conquest of
a lesser state by a greater, more powerful one
as a deeply immoral action. He even sent a guy
over there, didn't he? He did. He went so far
as to send a special representative, former Georgia
representative, James H. Blount, to Hawaii to
conduct a thorough investigation of the situation.
And Blount's role here is a fascinating historical
paradox because he was known for fiercely opposing
imperialism, but he was also a leading advocate
for white supremacy who had effectively ended
voting rights for southern black Americans in
the 1890s. Right. It's a very complicated legacy.
So going into the investigation, many expansionists
just assumed Blount would naturally support annexation
because his racist worldview wouldn't allow him
to believe the Native Hawaiian population could
govern themselves. That was the expectation,
yeah. But instead, he shocked Washington. He
explicitly called out U .S. imperialism, demanded
that the American military restore Queen Lilio
Kalani to her throne, and argued the Natives
should be allowed to continue their own ways
of life without American interference. Though
looking at the broader timeline, Blount seemingly
ignored previous written policy from Cleveland's
own first term in office. Oh, really? Yeah, back
in 1887, Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard
had explicitly authorized the use of Marines
to protect American commerce and property in
Hawaii in the event of a revolution. Wow. So
the policy was already highly interventionist
long before Blount arrived to criticize it. It
is a totally messy, contradictory political web.
But looking at the Anti -Imperialist League that
formed to fight the Newlands Resolution, I mean,
it featured some of the most famous influential
names of the entire era. Mark Twain, Andrew Carnegie,
William Jennings Bryan, Karl Schur... Huge names.
These were major intellectuals and titans of
industry, many of whom came of age during the
Civil War. They argued that expanding territorially
and taking over foreign populations violated
the absolute core of the Declaration of Independence,
the foundational idea that any legitimate government
derives its just powers from the consent of the
governed. Exactly. It seems completely hypocritical
to champion the Declaration of Independence on
Monday and annex a country against its will on
Tuesday. Did the expansionists just plug their
ears or did they actually invent a justification
to square that circle? This raises an important
question about how political narratives are constantly
constructed and reframed. Because the expansionists,
people like Theodore Roosevelt, Secretary of
State John Hay, and massive newspaper publishers
like William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer,
they didn't plug their ears. What did they do?
They entirely shifted the conversation. They
changed the narrative from self -government to
global survival. They argued that a competitive
modern Navy and Pacific bases were existential
requirements for the United States. By leaning
heavily into the fear of the expanding Japanese
empire and the brutal realities of European colonialism,
they justified the action not as abandoning American
ideals, but as securing the very survival of
the nation in a dangerous, highly industrial.
world. And having those massive newspaper empires
at their disposal allowed Hearst and Poulter
to whip up popular excitement, turning the concept
of a global American empire into a patriotic
duty. So the expansionists win the debate. The
anti -imperialists are defeated, the Newlands
resolution passes, but the messy aftermath of
actually having to govern this brand new territory
was just as complicated as the acquisition itself.
Definitely. Congress established a five -member
commission to figure out exactly what laws were
needed to govern Hawaii. This group included
Sanford B. Dole, who ultimately became the territorial
governor, along with Senators Shelby M. Cullum
and John T. Morgan, Representative Robert R.
Hitt, and Walter F. Freer. Their mandate was
to design a government, and their final report
triggered a bitter debate that dragged on for
well over a year. and the debate got incredibly
ugly on the floor of Congress. Lawmakers raised
openly racist objections, expressing deep anxiety
that establishing an elected territorial government
in Hawaii would eventually lead to the admission
of a state with a non -white majority. Yeah,
they were very vocal about that. They were actively
trying to engineer a system that would suppress
the native majority and maintain white mainland
control. The creation of the territory of Hawaii
in 1900 was the final formal step in a long history
of dwindling sovereignty for the islands. But
if you look closely at the mechanics of the deal
on a purely financial level, the United States
structured the acquisition to heavily favor its
own mainland interests. The economics of this
are staggering. The United States assumed $4
million in Hawaiian debt as part of the annexation
agreement. Right. But if you look at modern economic
analyses like David R. Barker's 2009 study, the
annexation was highly, almost aggressively profitable
for the U .S. Oh, completely. Net tax revenue
extracted from the territory almost always exceeded
whatever the federal government spent on non
-defense items there. This yielded an estimated
internal rate of return of more than 15 percent.
Unheard of. taking on $4 million in debt for
a guaranteed return of over 15 percent. That
is like buying a prime piece of Manhattan real
estate for absolute pennies. It was an incredible
bargain for Washington. It was undeniably lucrative.
The annexation formalized duty free trade between
the islands and the mainland, which was a massive
boon for agricultural corporations. See, I have
to push back on the necessity of that, though,
because historically those major trade perks
were largely already in place. long before the
Newlands Resolution. That's true, yeah. King
David Kalakaua had negotiated a reciprocity trade
agreement with the United States way back in
1875. That specific agreement already gave Hawaiian
sugar planters duty -free trade, and crucially,
it already gave the U .S. Navy a long -term lease
of Pearl Harbor to use as a naval base. Right.
They already had their foot in the door. Exactly.
If the United States already had the duty -free
trade and they already had the keys to Pearl
Harbor, did they even need the annexation for
economic or military reasons? Why buy the cow
when the milk is already free? That is the great
paradox of the Newlands resolution. Because the
United States already enjoyed those massive perks,
the resolution wasn't really about gaining new
access. What was it about then? It was about
asserting absolute, undeniable sovereign control
to lock out competing global powers. Wow. A treaty
or a reciprocity agreement can be broken, renegotiated,
or canceled by an independent Hawaiian government
at any time, perhaps under intense diplomatic
pressure from Japan or European towers. Right.
It's temporary. Exactly. Annexation, however,
fundamentally changed the game. It made the island's
American soil. It made those strategic advantages
permanent and entirely exclusive. And legally.
That permanence has been fiercely, consistently
defended by the United States government ever
since, even though the entire foundation started
with a procedural loophole. Yes, very consistent.
I mean, the U .S. Supreme Court gave tacit recognition
to the legitimacy of the annexation in a 1901
case called DeLima v. Bidwell. Right. And jumping
much closer to the present, in 2007, the Ninth
Circuit Court of Appeals recognized the legality
of the Newland's resolution in a case called
Arakaki v. Lingle. specifically noting that the
resolution provided for the Republic of Hawaii
to cede all public lands to the United States.
Yet, as we've discussed, the Hawaiian sovereignty
movement continues to vigorously dispute the
legality of the acquisition under the United
States Constitution precisely because of how
it was achieved. Because it wasn't a treaty.
Exactly. They point back to that joint resolution
and say it was never a valid treaty. The legal
legacy is just as deeply contested today as the
political history was in 1898. The journey of
the Newland's resolution is truly astonishing.
It started as a failed treaty that simply couldn't
get the required votes. It was resurrected from
the dead as a legislative loophole requiring
a drastically lower bar to clear. And then pushed
through by war. Right. propelled over the finish
line by the strategic panic and military opportunism
of the Spanish -American war. It was protested
by over half of the native population through
an incredible feat of grassroots organizing,
debated by the literary and political titans
of the age, and ultimately resulted in a highly
profitable but legally contested territory. It
really is a massive story. And for you, listening,
this is exactly why this specific slice of history
matters today. The Newlands Resolution proves
how obscure procedural loopholes in government
can literally redraw the map of the world. Absolutely.
It shows us that the mechanics of the law are
not always pristine and they are rarely perfectly
aligned with foundational ideals like the consent
of the governed. Decisions made in 1898 votes
tallied on joint resolutions to deliberately
avoid the strict rules of a constitutional treaty
still echo loudly in modern legal battles over
land, identity, and sovereignty. The repercussions
are still very real. They really are. But leaves
you wondering about the absolute fragility of
history. Think back to our game analogy from
the beginning, where the rules get changed at
the last minute because someone didn't like the
score. If the Spanish -American War hadn't broken
out at the exact moment McKinley's annexation
treaty was failing in the Senate, would the Newland's
resolution have ever passed? That's a great question.
Without Admiral Dewey's victory in the Philippines
and the sudden desperate military need for a
mid -ocean stopover, would Congress have ever
been able to justify using that loophole to the
American public? Or would Hawaii have remained
an independent nation? Or perhaps, as McKinley
feared, fall into another global power utilizing
a completely different loophole of their own?