1892 legislative session of the Hawaiian Kingdom
Members of this legislative session included citizens and subjects of the kingdom of either full or mixed Native Hawaiian, Euro-American and Asian descent, who were divided across different party lines.
They included the insurgents who would play an eventual role in the deposition of the queen, and also the political resistance leaders who would lead the opposition to the overthrow and attempts to annex the Hawaiian Islands to the United States.
It also raised property requirements for suffrage, disenfranchised many poor Native Hawaiians and naturalized Asian citizens, and gave the vote to unnaturalized foreign residents of European or American descent.
[3] The instigators of this coup d'état formed the Reform Party, drawing its memberships from Hawaiian conservatives and citizens of foreign descent, and won the majority of the seats in the legislature in the election of 1887, which was mandated by the new constitution.
The Reform Party lost their majority control in the legislature and the Thurston cabinet was removed by a legislative vote of want of confidence.
[16] The main issue of contention between the new monarch and the legislators was the retention of her cabinet ministers; political division prevented Liliʻuokalani from appointing a balanced council.
[20][21] The legislative assembly was prorogued January 14, at a noon ceremony officiated by the queen at Aliʻiōlani Hale, which was situated across the street from ʻIolani Palace.
[23] In the afternoon of January 14, she met with her cabinet ministers while members of Hui Kālaiʻāina and a delegation of native legislators marched to ʻIolani Palace with a sealed package containing the constitution for her to promulgate.
[24] However, she discovered the ministers were either opposed to or reluctant to sign the new constitution and the queen had to postpone her plans and dismiss the delegations of political leaders and the assembled crowds from the palace.
White, Nāwahī, Bush, Wilcox, and Antone Rosa and other pro-monarchist leaders gave speeches in support for the queen and the government.
[26] These actions and the radicalized political climate eventually led to the overthrow of the monarchy, on January 17, 1893, by the Committee of Safety, with the covert support of United States Minister John L. Stevens and the landing of American forces from the USS Boston.
[27][28] During this period, the de facto government was composed largely of residents of American and European ancestry, although a few Native Hawaiians from the 1892 legislature: John Ena, John Kauhane, and Jose Kekahuna Iosepa signed the constitutional convention for the Republic while Kauhane and George Panila Kamauoha would serve multiple terms in the legislature of the Republic.
[29] Many of the former legislators of the 1892 session, including Robert William Wilcox and Joseph Nāwahī, would lead the opposition to the overthrow and resistance to annexation of the Hawaiian Islands to the United States.
