The Admission Act, formally An Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union (Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law (United States) 86–3, enacted 1959-03-18) is a statute enacted by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Dwight D. Eisenhower which dissolved the Territory of Hawaii and established the State of Hawaii as the 50th state to be admitted into the Union. Hawaii remains the most recent state to join the United States.
Since Hawaii was a Territory of the United States in 1945, the United Nations in 1946 listed Hawaii as a non-self-Governing territory under the administration of the United States (Resolution 55(I) of 1946-12-14). Also listed as non-self-governing territories under the jurisdiction of the United States were Alaska Territory, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands.
In 1946, Hawaii was placed on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. America transmitted annual reports on Hawaii to the United Nations Secretary General from 1946 until September 1959. By a letter of September 17, 1959, after a statehood plebiscite in Hawaii with 94% approval, the United States notified the U.N. Secretary General that Hawaii had become a State of the Union in August 1959 and that the United States would thereafter cease to transmit information to the United Nations. The United Nations accepted this notification and removed Hawaii from the list of non-self-governing territories, recognizing the Statehood of Hawaii.
However, the 1959 statehood plebiscite misled the United Nations General Assembly by submitting only one of the three questions required for removal from the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. The plebiscite asked, "Shall Hawaii be admitted into the Union as a State?" These three questions should have been do you want self-determination, partial-autonomy, or statehood? Not once did the administrating power offer self-determination or full-independence as an alternative, and not once, since the United States listed Hawaii to the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, did the territory or the Department of the Interior, fulfill any of its obligations accorded to the United Nations Charter, Chapter 11 which takes into account the political aspirations of the peoples, and to assist them in the progressive development of their free political institutions. The responsibilities of the territory, as well as the Department of the Interior, should have also, following UN General Resolution 648 provide political advancement of the population sufficient to enable them to decide upon the future destiny of the territory with due knowledge.
The reason this is significant is that the State maintains its assertion that there was 94% support for statehood without recognizing that only [1], significantly reducing the statehood mandate. When you couple these voting figures with the exclusion of the other questions, as well as the lack of education of our political advancement, suddenly even the legitimacy of statehood under international law becomes controversial.
The acceptance of statehood for Hawaii was not without its share of controversy. Many in Hawaii did not vote in favor of statehood, and looking at the electoral maps-- both Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians-- one gets a sense of the ethnic makeup of those who voted, and how they voted, putting to rest claims that residents in Hawaii voted along racial lines. Also, various bills of admission were stalled in Congressional hearings since the early 1900s because of the racial prejudices of many members of the United States House of Representatives and United States Senate. There was a fear of establishing a state that was governed by an ethnic minority, namely the large Asian American population. Lawmakers questioned the American patriotism of Hawaii residents. Upon the election of John A. Burns from the Hawaii Democratic Party as delegate of the Territory of Hawaii to Congress, southern leaders charged that Burns' election was evidence of Hawaii as a haven for communism. John A. Burns, in 1959, would reflect on the obstacles against the statehood campaign and place more emphasis on the resistance to statehood in the islands, rather than in Washington itself.
The reasons why Hawaii did not achieve statehood, say, ten years ago—and one could without much exaggeration say sixty years ago—lie not in the Congress but in Hawaii. The most effective opposition to statehood has always originated in Hawaii itself. For the most part it has remained under cover and has marched under other banners. Such opposition could not afford to disclose itself, since it was so decidedly against the interests and desires of Hawaii's people generally.[2]
In contrast, recent research from the State Department, suggests that anti-soviet competition for territories by the old administering powers, had a more profound impact on Congress than the lobbying efforts of Burns or the Statehood Commission. Congressional debates at that time were still wrangling with the Asian countries becoming communist, and the fact that many of the new territories who had attained independence as a result of Chapter XI or the UN Charter, "The Declaration Regarding Non-Self-Governing Territories" were falling within the Soviet or PRC field of influence and being admitted into the United Nations General Assembly and casting votes on accepting and recognizing new territories, the US and the old colonial powers could not allow the Soviets to gain access to those resources and commodities of the old colonized countries. In 1960, although there is no hard evidence of any correspondence between Congress and the State Department that I know of, the UN General Assembly passed Declaration 1514, "The Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples" which many academics view as having influenced the Alaska and Hawaii Statehood vote in Congress in 1959. The US had already invested in Hawaii as a military outpost, and Congress did not want Hawaii to fall into the hands of Soviet influence and partake in a successful struggle for self-determination as the other Asian countries had.
On the latter point I wish to recall to your attention that the Department has been requested by the Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs on several occasions to give its opinion as to the effect the admission of Alaska and Hawaii to statehood would have on our foreign relations; in response to the latest request, from Chairman Murray of the Senate Committee on January 21, 1955, we replied on February 4, 1955, that statehood “would serve to support American Foreign policy and strengthen to position on the United States in international relations.”[3]
Burns was involved in vigorous lobbying of his colleagues persuading them that the race-based objections were unfair and charges that Communist Party sympathizers controlled Hawaii were blatant lies. Burns worked especially hard with the southern Democrats, led by Lyndon Johnson, who blocked the various Hawaii statehood bills. Upon leaving her seat as delegate from Hawaii, Elizabeth P. Farrington said, "Of course, Lyndon Johnson was no friend of statehood." Farrington added, "There were 22 times when he voted against us. He did everything he could, because he was representing the Southern racial opposition." She claimed Johnson had a fear that Hawaii would send representatives and senators to Congress who would oppose segregation, in spite of Johnson's record as a supporter of civil rights for blacks (Johnson had hedged in his support for the Civil Rights Act of 1957 to avoid splitting his party, giving it modest support and was to finally break up a Southern Democratic attempt to filibuster the Civil Rights Act of 1960).
It should also be noted that the Cuban revolution had successfully occurred on January 1, 1959 and the House and Senate voted in favor of Hawaii's admission three months later in March. The Southern Democrats were mostly sugar people and had connections to the Cuban sugar industry of which the US was its primary market. When Cuban sugar was nationalized and the plantation owners left, many of those states lost control of the sugar market which gave advantage to the west-coast sugar importers to gain control of the U.S. sugar market. In 1960, the major sugar growers were Hawaii, Philippines and Guam, all U.S. territories. After Cuba, the U.S. depended primarily on the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico voted for its status in accordance with UN procedure, which became semi-autonomous. The argument that Burns and the Statehood Commission lobbied Lyndon Johnson to persuade the Southern Democrats may have been a good story to spin, but it was likely not to difficult considering that the Southern Democrats had just lost their cash cow, Cuban sugar, to Soviet influence.
On the 53rd anniversary of the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, January 17, 1946, Territorial Senator Alice Kamokila Campbell, one of the few voices that opposed statehood for Hawaii, offered her testimony to the joint-congressional committee sent to investigate and report on statehood. Kamokila Campbell testified at Iolani Palace in front of a small crowd of 600 to frequent applause. There she stated.
I do not feel...we should forfeit the traditional rights and privileges of the natives of our islands for a mere thimbleful of votes in Congress, that we, the lovers of Hawaii from long association with it should sacrifice our birthright for the greed of alien desires to remain on our shores, that we should satisfy the thirst for power and control of some inflated industrialists and politicians who hide under the guise of friends of Hawaii, yet still keeping an eagle eye on the financial and political pressure button of subjugation over the people in general of these islands.[4]
Rather than any residual feelings of Hawaiian Nationalism or Royalist loyalties, Campbell was motivated by a fear of Asian voters gaining control of the State. The Territory was ruled by appointed Governors and appointed judges. Testifying before Congressional hearings on Statehood, Campbell explained:
First I will give it to you from the standpoint of a Hawaiian, the land being the land of my people. I naturally am jealous of it being in the hands of any alien influence. It took us quite a while to get used to being Americans—from a Hawaiian to an American—but I am very proud today of being an American. I don’t want ever to feel that I am ashamed of being an American. But I think that in the past 10 years I have lost a sense of balance here in Hawaii as to the future safety of my land. This un-American influence has come into our country, and even in the report of the Governor you will see where he says one-third of the population are Japanese. If we are a State they would have the power to vote and they would use every exertion to see that every vote was counted, if we become a State. As it is now, I feel the confidence and I feel the sincerity of Congress, and know they are not going to forsake us.
In 1947 Kamokila Campbell opened the Anti-Statehood Clearing House, where she sent “anti-statehood information, reports and arguments to congress.”[5]
On March 29, 1949, Kamokila Campbell successfully sued the Hawaii Statehood Commission, to stop them from spending public money to lobby for statehood, invalidating a single section of the Act which created the Hawaii Statehood Commission.[6]
It does not necessarily follow that the invalidity of paragraph 10 of section 2 of the Act vitiates the entire Act. It contains a severability clause. The invalidity of a portion of the law does not necessarily render the remainder void.
This holding is clearly in accord with the doctrine of partial invalidity as adhered to in this jurisdiction. What remains is "* * *complete in itself and capable of being executed in accordance with the apparent legislative intent * * *" wholly independent of that which is rejected.[7]
Out of a total population of 600,000 in the islands and 155,000 registered voters, 140,000 votes were cast, the highest turnout ever in Hawaii. The vote showed approval rates of at least 93% by voters on all major islands (see adjacent figure for details). Of the approximately 140,000 votes cast, fewer than 8000 rejected the Admission Act of 1959.
Looking at the Electoral Precinct Maps, of those who voted for Admission, many were from more rural districts, while in Honolulu, only about 20% of those that voted, voted in favor of statehood. Also it should be stated that in the primarily military districts of O'ahu, the votes cast were more in favor of Hawai'i throwing further controversy into the plebiscite by allowing military "residents" voting privileges.
