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About 250 Years Ago … Committee of Correspondence

Until late 1772, political control of Massachusetts remained in the hands of the merchants, who as a class were largely satisfied with the state of relations with the mother country, and were most reluctant to jeopardize peace and prosperity for the sake of an abstract political principle.

As long as the radicals such as Samuel Adams tried to work within the normal political channels, the moderate Whigs were able to restrain them.

The British government provided the radicals with the issue they needed, but it proved to be one which only a separate radical organization could exploit effectively.

In the spring of 1772 rumors began to circulate in Boston to the effect that Great Britain was going to assume responsibility for the salaries of the Superior Court judges, thus making them independent of the people of Massachusetts.

The radicals were concerned about the issue, however, and expressed that concern when a town-meeting of May 14, 1772, chose a committee to prepare Instructions for the newly elected representatives.

The committee consisted of nine men: Joseph Warren, Benjamin Church, Josiah Quincy, William Mollineux, William Dennie, William and Joseph Greenleaf, and Thomas and Richard Oil Gray.

The failure of the committee to agree on any instructions raises interesting question. John Cary, in his biography of Joseph Warren, concludes that “Warren and the other radicals on the committee seem to have been outnumbered”, and that in the future “Warren and Samuel Adams avoided the mistake of allowing moderates to ruin their plans”.  (McBride)

At the October 28 town meeting, after some debate, the attendees decided “by a vast majority” “that a decent and respectful Application … be made to his excellency the Governor … whether his excellency had received any advice. relative to this matter….” The meeting voted to petition the governor to permit the General Assembly to convene, so that “that Constitutional Body” might deliberate on the matter.

In order to bypass the moderates who were blocking his program, Adams created a separate radical organization based upon the radical control over the Boston town-meeting.  Ultimately, the Committee of Correspondence, was formed. The purpose of the committee, according to the motion which created it, was,

“to state the Rights of the Colonists …; to communicate and publish the same to the several Towns in this Province and to the World as the sense of this Town, with the Infringements and Violations thereof that have been, or from time to time may be made — Also requesting of each Town a free communication of their Sentiments on this Subject….”

The committee thus had very flexible instructions; it was not restricted to dealing with any particular issue but was a standing committee which could communicate with anyone about practically anything, past, present , or future.  (McBride)

With the participation of Samuel Adams and others, among them James Otis, Josiah Quincy, Joseph Warren, Thomas Young and Benjamin Church, the first action of the committee was the preparation of a “Statement of the Rights of the Colonists,” a list of infringements of those rights by Great Britain, and a covering letter to the other towns of Massachusetts.

The “statement of rights” was an effective and well-written piece of radical propaganda – it complained of infringements of liberties that many Massachusetts farmers had never before heard of – but the heart of the radical program lay in the covering letter.

In it the Boston town-meeting requested of the other towns “a free communication of your sentiments” and suggested that if the rights of the colonists were felt to have been stated properly, the towns should instruct their Representatives to support Boston.

By mid-February, 1773, seventy-eight out of approximately 240 Massachusetts towns, including most of the principal ones, had replied favorably.

Many of the remaining communities were actually not towns but groups of scattered farmers who for sound reasons of economy and convenience were delaying action on the Boston circular until their regular spring business-meeting. (McBride)

In response to what became known as the Boston Pamphlet, similar committees formed in towns across Massachusetts and in other American colonies, helping to create a network of colonial communication ultimately leading to independence from Great Britain.  (NY Library Archives)

Towns, counties, and colonies from Nova Scotia to Georgia had their own committees of correspondence.  (Battlefields)  Men on these committees wrote to each other to express ideas, to confirm mutual assistance, and to debate and coordinate resistance to British imperial policy.

Committees of Correspondence were longstanding institutions that became a key communications system during the early years of the American Revolution (1772-1776).  (Battlefields)

When the tea crisis developed on December 16, 1773, the system only functioned in the port-towns and around Boston. The appearance of strength which the system gave the radicals was sufficient, however, that they were able to direct events which resulted in a direct challenge to British rule.  (McBride)

Once the Tea Party led to the Coercive Acts, the committee system quickly spread into most of the towns.  (McBride)

The Committees were a way for colonial legislatures to communicate with their agents in London. In the 1760s, the Sons of Liberty used committees of correspondence to organize resistance between cities. The most famous and influential committees of correspondence, however, operated in the 1770s.  (Battlefields)

Under a growing system of mutual advisement, the Committee informed towns and other colonies of British actions in Boston, notably the arrival of East India Company tea shipments in Boston in 1773 and the impact of Britain’s punitive Coercive Acts in 1774, especially the closing of the Boston’s harbor.

The Committee also sought ways to relieve Boston’s poor. As military action seemed increasingly likely, the Committee tried to prevent colonists from aiding the British army with their labor, skills or supplies, and asked nearby towns to monitor British military maneuvers, while local militias prepared to be called.  (NY Library Archives)

In the late summer and autumn of 1774, the colonies, especially Massachusetts, became politically active on a very wide scale and at all political levels, from town-meetings and county conventions to a series of provincial and continental congresses.

Simultaneously, and on an equally wide scale, the colonists began active military preparations.

At this point the revolutionary movement unquestionably had the support of a large majority of the people of Massachusetts.

The Continental Congress established the Committee of Secret Correspondence to communicate with sympathetic Britons and other Europeans early in the American Revolution. The committee coordinated diplomatic functions for the Continental Congress and directed transatlantic communication and public relations.  (State Department)

With the gradual establishment of self-government and the evacuation of the British from Boston in March 1776, the Committee of Correspondence attended to public safety activities in the Boston area until the end of the Revolutionary War.

The Committee monitored the actions of Loyalists and others, while continuing its communication with other towns to strengthen American interests. Now known as the Committee of Correspondence, Inspection and Safety, its meetings during this period were usually chaired by Nathaniel Barber. William Cooper, Town Clerk of Boston, was clerk of the Committee throughout its existence. (NY Library, Archives)

In the 1770s there were three consecutive systems of committees of correspondence:

  • The Boston-Massachusetts system
  • The Inter-colonial system
  • The post-Coercive Acts system

Click the following links to general summaries about the Committee of Correspondence:

Click to access Committee-of-Correspondence-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Committee-of-Correspondence.pdf

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250 Years Ago – George Washington Address to the Inhabitants of Canada

After Great Britain emerged victorious in the French and Indian War, a clash with France over territory in North America, in 1763, it faced a difficult task: managing Quebec, a sprawling former French colony where the Catholic majority had little in common with their new Protestant rulers.

To heal the wounds of the war and streamline governance, the British Parliament passed the Quebec Act in 1774. The legislation’s compromises were significant. The criminal law code became British, while civil and property law in the province continued to follow the French model.

The act largely preserved Quebec’s feudal land distribution system, and it allowed residents the right to freely practice “the religion of the Church of Rome,” so long as they stayed loyal foremost to Britain’s king, George III.

The act’s most controversial reform, however, was expanding the official boundary of Quebec to the Ohio River Valley, which conflicted with prominent American colonists’ property interests and their hopes of expanding on the Western frontier.

Many residents of the lower Thirteen Colonies took the Quebec Act as yet another instance of “ministerial tyranny” akin to the Coercive Acts, which were passed that same year to punish Massachusetts for the Boston Tea Party and other incidents of unrest in the city.

The delegates of the First Continental Congress wholeheartedly condemned the Quebec Act—and Quebec itself—in September 1774 as “dangerous in an extreme degree to the Protestant religion and to the civil rights and liberties of all America.” (Wizevich, Smithsonian)

On about September 14,  1775. George Wasington delivered an address “To the Inhabitants of Canada”.

“Friends and Brethren,”

“The unnatural Contest between the English Colonies and Great-Britain, has now risen to such a Heighth, that Arms alone must decide it. The Colonies, confiding in the Justice of their Cause, and the Purity of their Intentions, have reluctantly appealed to that Being, in whose Hands are all human Events.”

“He has hitherto smiled upon their virtuous Efforts—The Hand of Tyranny has been arrested in its Ravages, and the British Arms which have shone with so much Splendor in every Part of the Globe, are now tarnished with Disgrace and Disappointment.—”

“Generals of approved Experience, who boasted of subduing this great Continent, find themselves circumscribed within the Limits of a single City and its Suburbs, suffering all the Shame and Distress of a Siege.”

“While the trueborn Sons of America, animated by the genuine Principles of Liberty and Love of their Country, with increasing Union, Firmness and Discipline repel every Attack, and despise every Danger.”

“Above all, we rejoice, that our Enemies have been deceived with Regard to you—They have perswaded themselves, they have even dared to say, that the Canadians were not capable of distinguishing between the Blessings of Liberty, and the Wretchedness of Slavery; that gratifying the Vanity of a little Circle of Nobility—would blind the Eyes of the People of Canada.—”

“By such Artifices they hoped to bend you to their Views, but they have been deceived, instead of finding in you that Poverty of Soul, and Baseness of Spirit, they see with a Chagrin equal to our Joy, that you are enlightned, generous, and virtuous—that you will not renounce your own Rights, or serve as Instruments to deprive your Fellow Subjects of theirs.—”

“Come then, my Brethren, unite with us in an indissoluble Union, let us run together to the same Goal.—We have taken up Arms in Defence of our Liberty, our Property, our Wives, and our Children, we are determined to preserve them, or die.”

“We look forward with Pleasure to that Day not far remote (we hope) when the Inhabitants of America shall have one Sentiment, and the full Enjoyment of the Blessings of a free Government.”

“Incited by these Motives, and encouraged by the Advice of many Friends of Liberty among you, the Grand American Congress have sent an Army into your Province, under the Command of General Schuyler; not to plunder, but to protect you; to animate, and bring forth into Action those Sentiments of Freedom you have disclosed, and which the Tools of Despotism would extinguish through the whole Creation.—”

“To co-operate with this Design, and to frustrate those cruel and perfidious Schemes, which would deluge our Frontiers with the Blood of Women and Children; I have detached Colonel Arnold into your Country, with a Part of the Army under my Command—”

“I have enjoined upon him, and I am certain that he will consider himself, and act as in the Country of his Patrons, and best Friends. Necessaries and Accommodations of every Kind which you may furnish, he will thankfully receive, and render the full Value.—”

“I invite you therefore as Friends and Brethren, to provide him with such Supplies as your Country affords; and I pledge myself not only for your Safety and Security, but for ample Compensation. Let no Man desert his Habitation—Let no one flee as before an Enemy.”

“The Cause of America, and of Liberty, is the Cause of every virtuous American Citizen; whatever may be his Religion or his Descent, the United Colonies know no Distinction but such as Slavery, Corruption and arbitrary Domination may create.”

“Come then, ye generous Citizens, range yourselves under the Standard of general Liberty—against which all the Force and Artifice of Tyranny will never be able to prevail. G. Washington.” (National Archives)

On New Year’s Eve, 1775, Colonists stormed Quebec City.  Of the roughly 500 soldiers in the contingent, 35 were killed, 33 were wounded and 372 were captured in the failed assault. (Wizevich, Smithsonian)

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250 Years Ago … Colonial Taverns

“All Taverns they call ‘Ordinary’s’”.

“There is no distinction here between inns, taverns, ordinaries and public houses; they are all in one and are known by the appelation of taverns, public house or ordinary …  They are all very indifferent indeed compared to the inns in England.”

“So came the establishment of the ordinary. It was created for the entertainment of travelers and for the mutual comfort of the settlers. This was scarcely second to their providing a gathering place for the church.”

“[T]he General Court of Massachusetts made towns liable to a fine for not sustaining an ordinary. Great inducements were offered to persons keeping them. Land was granted, pastures to keep their cattle or exemption from church rates and school taxes.”

“The early ordinaries were not operated just for the convenience of travelers, but also for the comfort of the townspeople, exchange of news and opinions, and the sale of liquors and socializing.”

“Drunkards were severely punished, either thrown into stocks, whipped or fined. Tobacco was considered more sinful, degrading and harmful than liquor. Both the use of and planting were forbidden.”

Samuel Cole opened the first tavern on March 4, 1634 in Boston. It was not long before the demand and necessity for taverns throughout the colonies was overwhelming.

The first ordinaries were built by a town to accommodate travelers, so they offered bed and board, and sometimes drink. So, initially, they weren’t exactly a tavern as we think of them as a place to go get a drink.

Taverns were traditional institutions “whose effect was to pull fledgling communities together.” “[E]arly taverns were not opened wholly for the convenience of travellers; …

“… they were for the comfort of the townspeople, for the interchange of news and opinions, the sale of solacing liquors, and the incidental sociability … the importance of the tavern to its local neighbors was far greater than to travellers.”

“The tavern has ever played an important part in social, political, and military life, has helped to make history.”

“From the earliest days when men gathered to talk over the terrors of Indian warfare; through the renewal of these fears in the French and Indian War … and through all the anxious but steadfast years preceding and during the Revolution, these gatherings were held in the ordinaries or taverns.”

Arguably the taverns’ most important role in society (and American history) is the role they played in the beginning of the Revolutionary War. As anger spread throughout the colonies, many took to the tavern to discuss, argue, and debate what needed to be done.

“These discussions soon brought decisions, and by 1768 the Sons of Liberty were organized and were holding their meetings, explaining conditions, and advocating union and action.”

“They adopted the name given by Colonel Barre to the enemies of passive obedience in America. Soon scores of towns in the colonies had their liberty trees or liberty poles.”

“The story of our War for Independence could not be dissociated from the old taverns, they are a part of our national history; and those which still stand are among our most interesting Revolutionary relics.”

Click the following links to general summaries about Colonia Taverns:

Click to access Colonial-Taverns-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Colonial-Taverns.pdf

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250 Years Ago … Minute Men

“ … to march at a Minute’s Warning, to the Relief of any Place that may be attacked, or to the Support of our Army …”

The American militias established in the colony of Massachusetts were based on an English militia model – every man over age sixteen was required to join and bring his own weapon to the mandatory musters (training meetings).

The governor had authority over the groups. As European settlers spread into Native American territories, conflicts increased. To increase the colonial fighting units’ flexibility, power was decentralized.

The Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1631 ordered that, “every man with a musket shall have ready one pound of powder, twenty bullets and two fathome of match, and that every captain shall traine (drill) his company on Saturday in every week. General training days once a month at one o’clock in the afternoon.”

In 1637, general training days were reduced to  eight times in a year. In 1636, the General Court held at Boston, ordered that the military companies be divided into three regiments and that all freeman be allowed to vote for officers of a trained band.

In 1645, company commanders were ordered, “to appoint out and to make choice of thirty soldiers of their companies in ye hundred, who shall be ready at half an hour’s warning upon any service they shall be put upon by their chief military officers.”

The organization of these emergency men was continued for generations, and later they became the famous minute men of the Revolutionary War. (The Connecticut Magazine, 1906)

By the mid-17th Century, militia commanders began organizing smaller companies of men, taken from the ranks of the town militias, who could act as first responders in times of danger. Commanders were ordered, “to make a choice of thirty soldiers of their companies in ye hundred, who shall be ready at half an hour’s warning.”

Later, on the verge of hostilities with the Wampanoag people led by King Phillip, militia regiments were ordered to “be ready to march on a moment’s warning, to prevent such danger as may seem to threaten us.” Eventually, these smaller units would come to be known as “minute companies.”

Generally, minute companies were comprised of young citizen-soldiers, 30 years of age or younger, who were quick, agile, and kept ready for deployment “in a minute’s notice.” Like most militia forces, they were armed and equipped at their own expense.

By the 1750s during the French and Indian War, some companies began calling themselves “minute men.”  While all minute men were part of the militia, not all militia troops were minute men.

Despite their designation, local troops were never held in high esteem by most regular officers of the British Army or political statesmen, who considered them at best, ill-trained amateurs and at worst, country bumpkins.

On October 26, 1774 they recommended that towns recruit volunteers and “that the field officers, so elected, forthwith endeavor to enlist one quarter, at least, of the number of the respective Companies, and form them into companies of fifty Privates, at the least who shall equip and hold themselves in readiness to march at the shortest notice …”

“… and that each and every company, so formed, choose a captain and two lieutenants to command them on any necessary and emergent service … form them into Companies of fifty Privates at the least, who shall equip and hold themselves in Readiness to march at the shortest Notice.” (LOC)

Minutes of the Provincial Congress, Watertown, June 17, 1775 notes it was “recommended to the Militia in all Parts of this Colony, to hold themselves in Readiness to march at a Minute’s Warning, to the Relief of any Place that may be attacked, or to the Support of our Army ….” (LOC)

Because they were expected to be ready quickly, “at a minute’s warning…” they became known as “minute men.” (NPS)

In December 1774, the town created a company of minute men who were instructed to “hold themselves in readiness at a minute’s warning, complete in arms and ammunition; that is to say a good and sufficient firelock, bayonet, thirty rounds of powder and ball, pouch and knapsack.”

While each town’s process for establishing minute companies could certainly differ from others, most towns within the colony complied with the request of the Provincial Congress. Minute companies would, however, comprise only about a quarter of each town’s militia force.

Overall, these elite, highly mobile companies were very well trained in the art of maneuver, usually the first to arrive at the scene of action, and in the use of their flintlock weapons, mainly smoothbore muskets, and fowling pieces.

On the morning of April 19, 1775, despite the myths and fireside stories that would be passed from one generation of Americans to the next, some suggest that the truth is that there were no Lexington minute men standing on the Village Green to witness the first shots of the American Revolution.

Rather, standing on the Green with Captain Parker that fateful morning were men who made up, not a minute company, but a traditional New England training band. They were friends, neighbors, and kinsmen; they were the militia and brave men, all.  (American Battlefield Trust, Wilcox)   (Note: Spelling of Minute Men (2-words) is based on how they spelled that name in the mid-1770s.)

Click the following link to a general summary about the Minute Men:

Click to access Minute-Men-SAR-RT.pdf

Click to access Minute-Men.pdf

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Hawaiian Kingdom Constitution and US Governance Documents

Over the centuries, the islands weren’t unified under single rule.  Leadership sometimes covered portions of an island, sometimes covered a whole island or groups of islands.  Island rulers, Aliʻi or Mōʻī, typically ascended to power through warfare and familial succession.

The kapu system was the common structure, the rule of order, and religious and political code.  This social and political structure gave leaders absolute rule and authority.

Rank depended primarily upon blood; but of great importance was the conduct of life by which one could, by carelessness in preserving the kapu and in making proper marriages, lose caste and prerogatives under the severe discipline of the Aha-ali‘i (Council of Chiefs,) or could, through a royal marriage, raise the rank of one’s descendants upon the family line. (Beckwith)

“Beginning with Kamehameha I, Hawaiian ali‘i had been keenly aware of the vulnerability of Hawai‘i to Western imperialist powers. He and his chiefs knew that the sheer numbers and military might of the Western powers could not be resisted by Hawaiian defenses.”

“As a result, Kamehameha I began looking for ways to protect his Hawai‘i Island Kingdom from Western powers even before he had succeeded in uniting the Hawaiian Islands.”

“Their traditional world had been changing for decades: increased contact with Western influences in the late eighteenth century, the Kamehameha wars, and Kamehameha’s death followed by the abrogation of the kapu system in 1819, population decline due to Western diseases, … rapidly changing economics and their traditional way of life, in general.”

“When the [American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions] ABCFM missionaries arrived [in 1820] with this background and learned that the ‘ai kapu had been abrogated, they believed it to be caused by divine intervention. But they were met with understandable apprehension.”

“The mō‘i and ali’i were engaged in a search for sovereignty in Euro-American terms. In order to maintain their independence in an era of imperialism, they created a nation that would be recognized as sovereign by other civilized nations.”

“Allegedly ‘primitive’ societies were being annexed by European nations throughout the Pacific in the mid nineteenth century, including closely related Polynesian societies in New Zealand, Tahiti, and the Marquesas.”

“As Britain, France, and the United States vied for power and influence in the Pacific, each sent warships to the islands demanding special treatment for its resident citizens and threatening to take over the kingdom.”

“In response to these pressures, Kamehameha III and the high-ranking chiefs were engaged in transforming the Hawaiian system of law and governance into an Anglo-American political system under the rule of law.”

“Their strategy was to create a ‘civilized’ nation, in European terms, to induce those European and American powers whose recognition defined sovereign status to acknowledge the kingdom’s independence.” (Sally Engle Merry)

“William Richards, an ABCFM missionary, became an important resource for the chiefs when he arrived among the Second Company in 1823. He and his wife, Clarissa, were stationed at Lahaina one month after their arrival in Honolulu.”  (Kokua Aku, Kokua Mai; Woods, Nogelmeier and Sai)

William Richards briefly went to the continent.  “When Mr Richards returned from a visit to the United States his place as minister at Lahaina had been filled by Dr. Baldwin and Mr Richards had been withdrawn.”

“Hoapill therefore requested that Mr Richards become instructor for the king and his court, since he had been a father to the chiefs of the royal family at Lahaina and to those of all Maui, and had carried them through their troubles.” (Kamakau)

“It was thus that Mr Richards had taught the chiefs of Maui, ‘The power of the law must be alike over rich and poor; in order to govern peacefully the law must have power over all alike’; and these few words had given him such a reputation for fairness and effectiveness that the king now chose Mr Richards as minister and instructor in the affairs of government.” (Kamakau)

“Richards’ initial service in his new position was a course of lectures to the chiefs on political economy and the general science of government. Writing just a week after he began his new work, he stated:

‘I lecture to the chiefs on Political economy, every day at 10 o’clock, making use of Waylands system as the foundation … I endeavor to propose some practical subject every day.’” (Richards, Kuykendall)

“Mr. Richards was chosen as their leader to teach the chiefs to understand the ways in which other races of men lived.”  (Kamakau)

“Richards was the mapmaker, but the ali’i were the captains who made the crucial decisions about what direction to sail the ship of state.”

“The Hawaiian ali‘i (chiefs) and their Hawaiian advisors developed the pathbreaking 1839 Declaration of Rights and 1840 Constitution with instruction and guidance from William Richards”. (Kokua Aku, Kokua Mai; Woods, Nogelmeier and Sai)

“The Hawaiian people believed in William Richards (Rikeke), the foreigner who taught the king to change the government of the Hawaiian people to a constitutional monarchy and end that of a supreme ruler, and his views were adopted.”

By means of these lessons in political economy with the chiefs he was educating them to confer together as leaders of other governments did, to compare the constitutional form of government with governments which had no constitution …

… and to see that the constitutional form of government belonged to those governments which were most famous and whose king, chiefs, and people were most advanced. Such governments excelled in knowledge and wealth and represented progress in the search after wealth and trade.

Thus the minds of the chiefs became enlightened. ‘So this is it! [said they] Here is the way to gain wealth and honor.’ Perhaps these chiefs were right, perhaps wrong.

“(He) met king & chiefs daily when other public business did not prevent, and as fast as (he) could prepare matter read it to them in the form of lectures. (He) endeavored to make the lectures as familiar as possible, by repeating them, and drawing the chiefs into free conversation on the subject of the Lecture.”

“They uniformly manifested a becoming interest in the school thus conducted, and took an active part in the discussion of the various topics introduced in the Lectures. The Lectures themselves were mere outlines of general principles of political economy, which of course could not have been understood except by full illustration drawn from Hawaiian custom and Hawaiian circumstances. …”

“The conversation frequently took so wide a range that there was abundant opportunity to refer to any and to every fault of the present system of government. But when the faults of the present system were pointed out & the chiefs felt them & then pressed (him) with the question, ‘Pehea la e pono ai,’ (How will it be bettered?)” (Richards Report to the Sandwich Islands Mission, May 1, 1839)

“During the year (Richards had) been called on to translate various documents and laws, some of which were transmitted to the USA & some were for promulgation at the Islands. (He had) said scarcely nothing to the king and chiefs respecting the existing evils or defects in the government, except as the subject has come up naturally and almost necessarily while discussing established principles of Political Economy.”

“A system of laws has been written out by (Boaz) Mahune, a graduate of the (Lahainaluna) high school, and he was directed by the King to conform them to the principles of Political Economy which they had learned. Those laws are some what extensive and protect all private property.”

“According to this code, no chief has any authority over any man, any farther than it is given him by specific enactment, and no tax can be levied, other than that which is specified in the printed law, and no chief can act as a judge in a case where he is personally interested, and no man can be dispossessed of land which he has put under cultivation except for crimes specified in the law.” (Richards Report to the Sandwich Islands Mission, May 1, 1839)

Mahune (with others from Lahainaluna) drafted the 1839 Hawaiian Bill of Rights, also known as the 1839 Constitution of Hawaiʻi.  This document was an attempt by King Kamehameha III and his chiefs to guarantee that the Hawaiian people would not lose their tenured land, and provided the groundwork for a free enterprise system.

Many refer to that document as Hawaiʻi’s Magna Charta (describing certain liberties, putting actions within a rule of law and served as the foundation for future laws.)  It served as a preamble to the subsequent Hawaiʻi Constitution (1840.)

It was a great and significant concession voluntarily granted by the king to his people. It defined and secured the rights of the people, but it did not furnish a plan or framework of the government.  (Kuykendall)

The Declaration of Rights of 1839 was influenced by Christian fundamentals, as well as rights noted in the US Declaration of Independence; it recognized three classes of persons having vested rights in the lands; 1st, the Government; 2nd, the Chiefs; and 3rd, the native Tenants. It declared protection of these rights to both the Chiefly and native Tenant classes.

Constitution of 1840

Then, Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III) initiated and implemented Hawaiʻi’s first constitution (1840) (one of five constitutions governing the Islands – and then, later, governance as part of the United States.)  Of his own free will he granted the Constitution of 1840, as a boon to his country and people, establishing his Government upon a declared plan. (Rex v. Booth – Hanifin)

That constitution introduced the innovation of representatives chosen by the people (rather than as previously solely selected by the Aliʻi.)  This gave the common people a share in the government’s actual political power for the first time.

In addition, the 1840 Constitution recognized rights of the people; its preamble read, “’God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth,’ in unity and blessedness. God has also bestowed certain rights alike on all men and all chiefs, and all people of all lands.”

“Absolute monarchy had come to an end in 1840. Since that time the kingdom had been governed under no less than four constitutions: the original one freely granted by Kamehameha III in 1840; one adopted by the legislature with the concurrence of the same King in 1852; one promulgated by Kamehameha V in 1864 on his own authority; and one granted in 1887 by Kalākaua as the result of a popular uprising (the Bayonet Constitution).” (Spaulding – Kosaki)

For two centuries, the trend in Hawaiʻi has been toward expanding the numbers of people who have a say in all parts of their government: from Kamehameha I’s near-absolute monarchy to a hereditary oligarchy, to an oligarchy open to men with money, to American republic.  (Hanifin)

How do the Hawaiian Kingdom Constitution (1840) & Declaration of Rights (1839) compare with the US Declaration of Independence (1776)?

Both documents assert the sovereignty of their respective entities. The Declaration of Independence proclaims the sovereignty of the thirteen American colonies from British rule, while the Hawaiian Constitution asserts the sovereignty of the Hawaiian Kingdom.

Both documents emphasize the importance of individual rights. The Declaration of Independence declares that all individuals are endowed with certain unalienable rights, including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Similarly, the Hawaiian Constitution guarantees various rights to its citizens, such as the right to due process, freedom of speech, and religious freedom.

Both documents outline the establishment of a government structure. The Declaration of Independence expresses the intention to form a new government that derives its powers from the consent of the governed. Similarly, the Hawaiian Constitution establishes a governmental framework, delineating the roles and responsibilities of different branches of government.

Both documents acknowledge the concept of natural law. The Declaration of Independence asserts that governments are instituted to secure the natural rights of individuals. Likewise, the Hawaiian Constitution recognizes the principles of natural law and acknowledges the importance of maintaining harmony and balance with the natural environment.

While there are some similarities between the Declaration of Independence and the Hawaiian Constitution, it is important to note that they have different historical contexts and purposes. The Declaration of Independence marked the birth of a new nation, while the Hawaiian Constitution was a governing document for the Hawaiian Kingdom. (Alika Desha, ChatOn)

Click HERE for more on this.

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