How To Steal A Country

THE FORGOTTEN HISTORY OF HOW US MARINES AND SAILORS TOOK HAWAII IN AN ILLEGAL COUP

January 3, 2022J.E. McCollough
bloodless coup

In 1893, US Marines and sailors staged a bloodless coup to seize control of Hawaii. Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash; composite by Coffee or Die Magazine.

US Marines are known for their amphibious warfare capabilities — projecting power from naval vessels onto beaches or littoral zones anywhere in the world. And while leathernecks are forged on the proud naval traditions and legendary exploits of their forebears, most of America’s “soldiers of the sea” are unaware of the role US Marines played in capturing one Pacific island chain in particular: Hawaii.   


The bloodless coup that overthrew the last Hawaiian monarch, Queen Liliʻuokalani, is little-remembered American history. It was the type of action that led legendary Marine officer Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler to say of his career, “I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers.”


Hawaii MarinesBluejackets of the USS Boston occupy Arlington Hotel grounds during the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani, with US Navy Lt. Lucien Young in command of troops. Site of childhood home of Queen Liliʻuokalani. US Naval History and Heritage Command photo.

Early in the evening of Jan. 16, 1893, Navy Lt. Lucien Young led a force of 162 American Marines and sailors from the USS Boston as they disembarked the ship anchored in Honolulu Bay and marched up the city’s cobblestone streets roughly half a mile to Aliʻiōlani Hale — then the seat of government for the Kingdom of Hawaii — to carry out a bloodless coup in the name of the US government.   


The American force occupied Aliʻiōlani Hale and its adjacent buildings, which stood directly across the street from Iolani Palace, where Liliʻuokalani lived. Although the American force had Gatling guns and light artillery, the queen had a palace guard force of almost 600 soldiers, artillery of her own, and a defensible position.


Rather than put her people at risk, the queen formally abdicated her throne in a conditional letter: “Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the loss of life, I do, under this protest, and impelled by said force, yield my authority until such time as the Government of the United States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of its representatives and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.”


USS BostonUSS Boston in 1891. Wikimedia Commons photo.

The coup was undoubtedly illegal and not officially sanctioned by President Benjamin Harrison or the US Congress. Its mastermind was John L. Stevens, the US Minister to Hawaii — a US State Department position equivalent in rank to a present-day US ambassador to foreign governments. 


Stevens was a journalist, author, minister, and newspaper publisher who founded the Republican Party in Maine and served as a Maine state senator. Like many Americans in the Victorian era, Stevens was a proponent of Manifest Destiny — the belief that the United States should continue its territorial expansion across North America, the Caribbean, and the Pacific.


With the British angling for the strategic harbors in the Pacific archipelago, Stevens believed the US should annex Hawaii, and he wrote to US Secretary of State John W. Foster, “The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe, and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it.”


Stevens’ “golden hour” coincided with Liliʻuokalani’s attempt to ratify a new constitution that would have reasserted the monarchy’s power — largely ceded by her predecessor.


HawaiiQueen Liliʻuokalani’s household guard being disarmed by Col. John H. Soper, following the overthrow of the monarchy in January 1893. Wikimedia Commons photo.

“The rumor circulated that her new constitution would deny the vote to any haole [nonnative Hawaiian] who was not married to a Hawaiian,” Ruth M. Tabrah wrote in Hawaii: A History. “The certainty of many Americans was that she would sooner see her kingdom placed in the hands of the British than continue a pattern of American influence and American political control. On the morning of January 14, 1893, the queen announced her intention to promulgate a new constitution that would restore actual rule of the kingdom to her as sovereign.”


With their interests threatened by the possibility of the new constitution becoming law, a cabal of businessmen calling themselves the “Committee of Safety“ saw US annexation as the best way to stay in power. The group of powerful plantation owners and financiers was supported by Sanford Dole, a lawyer and descendant of American missionaries in Hawaii. With Stevens’ support, the Committee of Safety conspired to take action. 


According to the eventual presidential investigation of the coup in Hawaii: A “small body of men, some of whom were Germans, some Americans, and some native-born subjects of foreign origin” met on the evening of Jan. 14, 1893, and discussed “the subject of dethroning the Queen and proclaiming a new Government with a view of annexation to the United States.”


hawaiiCeremonies marking the raising of the United States flag at the Old Government Building Aug. 12, 1898. Sanford Dole, who declared himself president of the Republic of Hawaii after deposing the monarchy, is among those present. US Naval History and Heritage Command photo.

The Committee of Safety asked Stevens for military support under the pretense of protecting American citizens and property in Honolulu. Stevens delivered, ordering Navy Capt. Gilbert C. Wiltse, commander of the USS Boston, to dispatch the ground force. 


“In view of the existing critical circumstances in Honolulu, including an inadequate legal force, I request you to land marines and sailors from the ship under your command for the protection of the United States legation and United States consulate, and to secure the safety of American life and property” Stevens instructed Wiltse on Jan. 16, 1893.


Although Stevens was acting on his own without any authorization from the State Department, Congress, or the president, Wiltse carried out the minister’s illegitimate order, and Stevens and the Committee of Safety established a provisional government deemed “The Republic of Hawaii.” Sanford Dole, who was beginning his pineapple business, declared himself president without a popular vote, and the new government found the queen guilty of treason and placed her under house arrest.


Marines HawaiiUS Marines at annexation ceremonies in Hawaii on Aug. 12, 1898. Wikimedia Commons photo.

The American businessmen lobbied Harrison and Congress to officially annex the Hawaiian Islands, but after Harrison sent an annexation treaty to the Senate for confirmation in his final month in office, newly elected President Grover Cleveland withdrew the treaty. Cleveland appointed James H. Blount to investigate the events surrounding the overthrow of Hawaii’s monarchy, and Blount’s investigation concluded that Stevens acted completely illegally in ordering the operation, which would not have succeeded “but for the landing of the United States forces upon false pretexts respecting the dangers to life and property.” 


“The provisional government owes its existence to an armed invasion by the United States,” Cleveland wrote about the coup. “By an act of war … a substantial wrong has been done.”


Cleveland supported restoring the monarchy in Hawaii, and he received Liliʻuokalani and replaced the American Stars and Stripes in Honolulu with the Hawaiian flag. The US House of Representatives voted to censure Stevens and adopted a resolution opposing annexation. Because American public sentiment at the time didn’t reflect Cleveland’s strong anti-imperialist ideals, Congress did not act to restore the monarchy.


Hawaii MarinesAmerican Marines from the USS Philadelphia raise the American flag at the United States annexation ceremony at Iolani Palace, Honolulu, Hawaii. Wikimedia Commons photo.

President William McKinley succeeded Cleveland in March 1897, and after running on a Republican Party platform that called for the annexation of Hawaii, McKinley wanted Congress to officially annex the islands. Fearing he lacked the two-thirds majority he needed in the Senate, McKinley called for a joint resolution of Congress — the same way the US acquired Texas. With Congress fearing Japan might make a play for the Hawaiian Islands and the Spanish-American War looming, the joint resolution easily passed.


In July 1898, McKinley signed the joint resolution, officially annexing Hawaii as a US territory. In 1959 — 66 years after the bloodless coup that took the Hawaiian archipelago for the United States — President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed legislation making Hawaii the 50th American state. The US formally apologized to Hawaii in 1993 for annexing the islands, and the apology was codified into law.


When the Marines and sailors from the USS Boston posted up around Iolani Palace in January 1893, the queen’s guards were under orders not to provoke the Americans. So despite a restive night for the Marines slapping mosquitoes, Jan. 17 dawned without violence. The Marines never fired a shot, but their presence and the military power they represented was enough to end a monarchy. 


“The way to lose any earthly kingdom is to be inflexible, intolerant and prejudicial,” Liliʻuokalani said later. “Another way is to be too flexible, tolerant of too many wrongs and without judgment at all. It is a razor’s edge.” 

Hawaii’s “Bayonet Constitution”

By Thomas DiLorenzo

August 25, 2023

News reports of how Hawaiians greeted Biden’s motorcade in Maui on August 21 with middle fingers and shouts of “F_ _ _ You!”  “F_ _ _ You!” was especially appropriate – if not a century or so too late – in light of the history of how Hawaii became a U.S. government possession.

Twenty-two years after the Lincoln regime proclaimed to have saved American government “of the people, for the people, by the people,” by slaughtering nearly half a million fellow citizens in the Southern states, the Republican party of Lincoln disenfranchised the native people of Hawaii with what was known as the “bayonet constitution.”  At the time, the American crony capitalists who essentially ran the Republican party (as they had from its inception) wanted Hawaii to be declared an American province under U.S. control (aka, their control).  As historian Gregg Jones wrote in Honor in the Dust, Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani attempted to stave off the American crony capitalist imperialists by creating a new constitution.  The crony capitalists responded by creating a laughingly named “Committee of Safety” that plotted to overthrow the Hawaiian monarchy.

They got the U.S. government to appoint one John Stevens as an “envoy” to Hawaii, whose job was to arrange for American troops to land there, take over, get rid of the Monarchy, and create a puppet government with one of their own as the head of the government.  Sound familiar?

A Judge Sanford Dole, whose family had long Puritan/Yankee roots in the state of Maine, was put in place as the new head of government.  A paramilitary organization known as the Honolulu Rifles forced the Hawaiian king at gunpoint with the threat of being stabbed to death with bayonets to sign off on a new constitution that came to be known as the “bayonet constitution.”  This was “the party of Lincoln” in all its glory, having just two decades earlier forced the Southern states at gunpoint to accept a new constitutional order that essentially destroyed the system of federalism of the founding fathers and replaced it with a consolidated, monopolistic, bureaucratic Leviathan in Washington, D.C. run by “rich men north of Richmond,” as a popular new country music song describes it.

The ”bayonet constitution” disenfranchised all Asians living in Hawaii as “an inferior race” as well as most native Hawaiians.

Voting rights were preserved for the relatively wealthy American land and business owners.  James Dole, the cousin of Judge Sanford Dole, then founded the Dole Fruit Company.

But before the annexation of Hawaii was completed the great Grover Cleveland, the last Jeffersonian president and the last good Democrat, became president in March of 1893 and killed the deal, denouncing the “lawless landing of the United States force at Honolulu.”

Greg Jones writes of how, two years later Teddy Roosevelt, the biggest blowhard politician in American history, informed a cheering Boston audience that “I feel it was a crime . . . against the white race that we did not annex Hawaii three years ago.”  Annexation finally did occur in 1898; Hawaii became an American territory in 1900 and achieved statehood in 1959.

Who knows, maybe the “greeting” that those Hawaiians gave Biden and his imperial motorcade is the beginning of a de-annexation movement, or at least a movement that will lead to the increased nullification of federal micromanagement of the lives of Hawaiians.

The Best of Thomas DiLorenzo

Dr. Thomas DiLorenzo [send him mail] is a senior fellow of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. His latest book is The Politically Incorrect Guide to Economics (Regnery, August 2022).

On Stupidity

Dietrich Bonhoeffer's theory explains much of contemporary politics and culture.

By John Leake
Courageous Discourse

August 24, 2023

In 1943, the Lutheran pastor and member of the German resistance, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, was arrested and incarcerated in Tegel Prison. There he meditated on the question of why the German people—in spite of their vast education, culture, and intellectual achievements—had fallen so far from reason and morality. He concluded that they, as a people, had been afflicted with collective stupidity (German: Dummheit).

He was not being flippant or sarcastic, and he made it clear that stupidity is not the opposite of native intellect. On the contrary, the events in Germany between 1933 and 1943 had shown him that perfectly intelligent people were, under the pressure of political power and propaganda, rendered stupid—that is, incapable of critical reasoning. As he put it:

Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than wickedness. Evil can be protested against, exposed, and, if necessary, it can be prevented by force. Evil always harbors the germ of self-destruction by inducing at least some uneasiness in people. We are defenseless against stupidity. Nothing can be done to oppose it, neither with protests nor with violence. Reasons cannot prevail. Facts that contradict one’s prejudice simply don’t need to be believed, and when they are inescapable, they can simply be brushed aside as meaningless, isolated cases.

In contrast to evil, the stupid person is completely satisfied with himself. When irritated, he becomes dangerous and may even go on the attack. More caution is therefore required when dealing with the stupid than with the wicked. Never try to convince the stupid with reasons; it’s pointless and dangerous.

To understand how to deal with stupidity, we must try to understand its nature. This much is certain: it is not essentially an intellectual, but a human defect. There are people who are intellectually agile who are stupid, while intellectually inept people may be anything but stupid. We discover this to our surprise in certain situations.

One gets the impression that stupidity is often not an innate defect, but one that emerges under certain circumstances in which people are made stupid or allow themselves to be made stupid. We also observe that isolated and solitary people exhibit this defect less frequently than socializing groups of people. Thus, perhaps stupidity is less a psychological than a sociological problem. It is a special manifestation of the influence of historical circumstances on man—a psychological side effect of certain external conditions.

A closer look reveals that the strong exertion of external power, be it political or religious, strikes a large part of the people with stupidity. Yes, it seems as if this is a sociological-psychological law. The power of some requires the stupidity of others. Under this influence, human abilities suddenly wither or fail, robbing people of their inner independence, which they—more or less unconsciously —renounce to adapt their behavior to the prevailing situation.

The fact that stupid people are often stubborn should not hide the fact that they are not independent. When talking to him, one feels that one is not dealing with him personally, but with catchphrases, slogans, etc. that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell; he is blinded; he is abused in his own being.

Having become an instrument without an independent will, the fool will also be capable of all evil, and at the same time, unable to recognize it as evil. Here lies the danger of diabolical abuse. Through this, a people can be ruined forever.

But it is also quite clear here that it is not an act of instruction, but only an act of liberation that can overcome stupidity. In doing so, one will have to accept the fact that, in most cases, real inner liberation is only possible after outer liberation has taken place. Until then we will have to refrain from all attempts to convince the stupid. In this state of affairs, we try in vain to know what “the people” actually think.”

The Bible states that the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Thus, the inner liberation of man begins by living responsibly before God. Only then may stupidity be overcome.

Bonhoeffer, Dietrich.“Von der Dummheit”: Widerstand und Ergebung. Briefe und Aufzeichnungen aus der Haft. S. 17–20. Muenchen, Christian Kaiser Verlag, 1951.

The Flowering of Mediocrity

Theodore Dalrymple

August 18, 2023

Source: Bigstock

When someone is said to be lacking in ambition, it is usually meant as a criticism, as if people had a transcendent moral duty to be ambitious. How else but by ambition will mankind advance?

I grant that ambition is sometimes, or often, necessary, but it is a virtue, like bravery, that is not self-standing. To be brave in a bad cause is worse than to be cowardly in the same cause. And it hardly takes much historical knowledge to realize that ambition can be the closest ally of monstrous evil.

If everyone were ambitious, what a terrible world it would be! The constitution of human society requires people of very different qualities, the unambitious as much as the ambitious. In some respects, the unambitious, those who are not driven to achieve anything, are fortunate: They are not tortured by the idea that they must improve on what they have already done, that they must forever go onwards and upwards. They can be content with their lot in a way that the ambitious never can be.

“It hardly takes much historical knowledge to realize that ambition can be the closest ally of monstrous evil.”

Of course, such contentment has not had good press; but that is because writing is always done by the ambitious, as history is usually written by the victors. The dilemma is posed in the following fashion: Is it better to be a discontented man or a contented pig? The “correct” answer is contained in the way the question is phrased; for who would say it is better to be a pig than a man? (I leave aside the question of the pig’s actual level of intelligence and self-consciousness.)

The ambitious tend to regard the unambitious as wallowing in the swill and mud of ordinary existence. They have the contempt for the unambitious that the intellectual often has for those who’ve never read a book. No doubt this picture is sometimes true: One meets people whose steel-plated complacency repels. But this complacency is far from confined to the unambitious; it is found among the ambitious who have succeeded triumphantly without any particular talent. It is often written on their faces, as unmistakably as hardship is written on other faces.

My thoughts turned to the question of ambition when I considered our gardener in France, who comes twice a week. He is a man in his 50s who has always lived alone and who refuses all payment more than 50 percent higher than the minimum wage, though we would be prepared to pay him more.

To see him work is a rare pleasure. He obviously loves what he does. He works fast, efficiently, and with an aesthetic sense. You soon realize that supervision of his work would be an impertinence. Seeing him from the corner of your eye, however, you see that he never lets up. If he says he has worked three hours, he has worked three hours, with no time off for mooning or coffee breaks.

What he likes is to work alone. I would like to know what he thinks about as he is working but of course do not ask. We have had conversations with him over a beer, however. He detests large cities, especially Paris, Marseille, and Lyon, and hopes never again to have to go to them. He dislikes the rush, the pollution, the insincerity, the greed, the incipient violence, the falsity of urban life. He is, as they say, du coin—he was born round here and wants to die round here.

He lives in a rather beautiful village a few kilometers away, though I doubt that his habitation is luxurious. I imagine, on the contrary, that it is very simple, where very little can go wrong. (We are always having to call the plumber, or the electrician, or the glazier, or the gasman, or the roofer, or the financial expert, etc., each time with a sinking heart.) When we either go to or pass through the village, we often see him sitting outside the bar, having a quiet pastis and chatting with a friend. He spends hours like this. I should add that he is far from stupid.

Because I am ambitious, I cannot imagine myself being contented with a life such as his. Since we tend to assume that everyone is like ourselves, I am inclined to suppose that there must be some deep psychological wound in him that renders him so superficially content with his life—but that underneath, he must be suffering a nameless sorrow.

No doubt I do this to lessen the torture that ambition inflicts upon me, though I am well past the age at which I can deceive myself into thinking that one day I might achieve something worthwhile, or even better than merely worthwhile. I shall be driven to effort until the day I die.

But at least my ambition has been harmless to others. One of the troubles of the modern age (it seems to me) is that its exacerbated individualism has spread ambition far too widely. Nietzsche had no time for the religion of the poor and humble, which he thought exacted a terrible price on superior persons rather like himself. He also seemed to extol the will to power as a cure of the cultural anemia brought about, in his opinion, by religion, particularly the Christian religion.

Whatever one may think of Nietzsche as a philosopher, his prediction of the decline of religion—or rather, the continuation of its decline, for he was only 7 years old when Matthew Arnold wrote his great poem about the decline of religious faith, “Dover Beach”—has come true, and power is the transcendent goal that has replaced salvation in the beyond.

Nietzsche disdained the multitudes and thought that it was superior persons who should seek power, admittedly not in the political field. What happened, however, was that huge numbers of people sought power as the only transcendent good; and given the normal distribution of most human qualities such as talent, it was inevitable that most people who sought (and achieved) power were mediocrities. In other words, the decline of religion, far from conducive to an age of personal and artistic superiority, as Nietzsche hoped, conduced to the very opposite, the flowering (if I may be allowed what seems like an oxymoron) of mediocrity.

Theodore Dalrymple’s latest book is Ramses: A Memoir, published by New English Review.