[6] Hawaii's territorial history includes a period from 1941 to 1944, during World War II, when the islands were placed under martial law.

A commission, led by Lorrin A. Thurston, was sent to Washington, D.C. to negotiate an annexation treaty with US President Benjamin Harrison.

He withdrew the treaty from consideration, and ordered a congressional investigation into the events surrounding the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.

Further investigation by Congress led to the Morgan Report, which established that US troops in Hawaii had been completely neutral during the overthrow, and exonerated the US military from any accusations of complicity.

The more conservative Sanford B. Dole, former Supreme Court Justice and friend of Queen Liliʻuokalani, was elected as the first and only president of the new government.

[9] During the Spanish–American War, Hawaii's strategic location relative to the Philippines made it especially important to American interests, as argued by naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan.

The Resolution also provided for the establishment of a five-member commission to study what new laws were needed regarding the management and disposition of public lands in Hawaii, and to develop a frame of government for the islands.

Its members were Sanford B. Dole (who, under the terms of the Resolution, retained the powers he previously exercised as President of Hawaii), Walter F. Frear (who likewise remained Judge of the Supreme Court of Hawaii), US Senators Shelby M. Cullom (R-Illinois) and John T. Morgan (D-Alabama), and US Representative Robert R. Hitt (R-Illinois).

Many Southern Representatives and Senators raised objections to establishing an elected territorial government in Hawaii, as doing so would open a pathway for the admission of a state with a "non-white" majority population at a time when strict "Jim Crow laws" enforced white political control throughout the American South.

In early 1900, Congress passed an Act To provide a government for the Territory of Hawaii, which was signed into law by President William McKinley on April 30, 1900.

His transports encouraged him to purchase passenger steamships that would carry tourists hoping to vacation in Hawaii from the US mainland.

[12][13] Matson's fleet included the SS Wilhelmina, rivaling the best passenger ships serving traditional Atlantic routes.

In 1927, the luxurious Royal Hawaiian Hotel, informally called the "Pink Palace of the Pacific", opened for business.

McKinley and his successor US President Theodore Roosevelt expanded the military presence in Hawaii and established several key bases, some still in use today.

By getting rid of tariffs imposed on sugarcane sent to the continental United States, planters had more money to spend on equipment, land and labor.

Five kingdom-era corporations benefited from annexation, becoming multimillion-dollar conglomerations: Castle & Cooke, Alexander & Baldwin, C. Brewer & Co., Theo H. Davies & Co., and American Factors (later Amfac).

[20] Race relations in Hawaii took to the national spotlight on September 12, 1931 when Thalia Massie, a US Navy officer's wife, got drunk and alleged that she was beaten and raped.

Although evidence could not prove that the men were directly involved, national newspapers quickly ran stories about the brute locals on the prowl for white women in Hawaii.

[22] The term "local" (Hawaii's non-Caucasian population) was galvanized through the Massie Trial[23] From 1941 to 1944, following the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II, Territorial Governors Joseph Poindexter and Ingram Stainback stripped themselves of their administrative powers by declaring martial law.

There ensued a turf battle between the federal Departments of War, Justice and Interior, in which the middle one played a mediating or flip-flopping role.

[27] The Glockner and Seifert cases, actually two detained, naturalized Germans, tested the military's suspension of habeas corpus.

In the second year of martial law, August 1943, US District Judge Metzger subpoenaed General Richardson as to why these two were held without charges.

During the years leading up to the ousting of the Republican Party, Cold War fears brewed and the U.S. was in the middle of the Second Red Scare.

The reasons for the support of statehood were clear: A former officer of the Honolulu Police Department, John A. Burns, was elected Hawaii's delegate to Congress in 1956.

Upon arriving in Washington, D.C., Burns began making key political maneuvers by winning over allies among Congressional leaders and state governors.

Burns' most important accomplishment was convincing Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson (D-Texas) that Hawaii was ready to become a state, despite the continuing opposition of such Deep Southerners as James Eastland[38] and John Sparkman.

In March 1959, both houses of Congress passed the Hawaii Admission Act and US President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed it into law.