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, Hawai‘i was placed on the United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories. This meant that the United States as the colonial power occupying Hawai‘i had a "sacred trust obligation" to the Hawaiian people to discuss three possible options for the future of decolonizing Hawaii: 1) become fully incorporated into the United States as a state. 2) Compact of Free Association (something like Puerto Rico). 3) Independence.
America transmitted annual reports on Hawaii to the United Nations Secretary General from 1946 until September 1959. By a letter of September 17, 1959, 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.
OnNovember 27, 1953, the Fourth Committee of the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 742. This resolution was entitled "Factors which should be taken into account in deciding whether a Territory is or is not a Territory whose people have not yet attained a full measure of self-government." Part I of the Resolution identified "Factors indicative of the attainment of Independence." Part II of the Resolution listed factors indicative of the attainment of "other separate systems of self-government." Part II of the Resolution addressed factors indicative of the Free Association of the territory as an integrate part of that country.
History verifies that the United States violated the provisions of Resolution 742. The federal ballot used in 1959 did not afford the people of Hawai‘i "several possibilities, including independence" nor were the Hawaiian people given the option to create their own "separate system of government."
In 1998 United Nations Special Rapporteur Miguel Alphonso Martinez of Cuba recommended that Hawaii be relisted on the United Nations list of non-self-governing territories and decolonized pursuant to the U.N. procedures.
The acceptance of statehood for Hawaii was not without its share of controversy. 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.
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 southerners, 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." She cited Johnson's fear that Hawaii would send representatives and senators to Congress who would oppose segregation. Farrington added, "There were 22 times when he voted against us. He did everything he could, because he was representing the Southern racial opposition."
Statehood was initiated by members of the Hawaii Republican Party, controlled by powerful sugarcane plantation owners like the Big Five. The 1934 Jones-Costigan Act, which was a part of the New Deal agricultural policies, reduced the amount of sugar that could be exported to the U.S. continent tariff free. Thus, by 1935, the Republican-controlled Territorial legislature established the Hawaii Equal Rights Commission as a means to challenge any federal discrimination against Hawaii but to also initiate discussions about Hawaii statehood. The sugar industry as a whole, however, was still ambivalent about statehood as the growing Japanese community suggested the possibility that the Japanese might control elected offices, especially if the power of such offices were increased by statehood.
A mixed vote in the population of anyone who resided in Hawaii over a year, 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, less than 8000 rejected the Admission Act of 1959.
On the morning of August 19, 2006, state Representative Barbara Marumoto, dressed as the Statue of Liberty, and state Senator Sam Slom, waving a large American flag, led a group of around 50 people to celebrate the admission of Hawaii as the 50th state at ʻIolani Palace—the site where statehood was declared nearly 47 years earlier. This group's state-sponsored commemoration, however, was blocked by Hawaiian sovereignty movement activists, also estimated at around 50, who were angered at Marumoto and Slom's decision to hold the celebration on palace grounds, the site where the U.S.-supported overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom had also taken place 113 years earlier. Carrying Hawaiian nationalist flags and signs that read "Kanaka Maoli Independence" protesters argued that ʻIolani Palace "is a sacred spot, which is the seat of our government" and demanded that the statehood celebration take place next door at the state capitol. The two groups clashed when the statehood celebrators continued with their program and began to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" without accompaniment from the Kalani High School band, which decided to leave the event and not get involved. The Hawaiian group countered by using a public address system to interrupt the U.S. national anthem. Verbal arguments and near-physical confrontations followed and continued for over an hour until the statehood group decided to disperse.[citation needed]
