The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1864-08-20
THE PACIFIC
Commercial Advertiser.
AUGUST %.

SATURDA Y, 20.
- THE deed is done. The Ministry have triumph
ed. The fears and exaggerated predictions of
the friends of Constitutional liberty have been
more than realized, and the Constitution Of 1852
at once the gift and the monument of the
beloved KAUIXEAoULI-lies a wreck, which no
skill or cunning craft can mend. Hawaii no
longer stands before the world as a Constitu-
tional Monarchy, but as an Oligarchy, ruled by
a Ministerial Cabinet of four.
On Saturday last, as announced in our extra
of that date, the Convention was dissolved. 1t
was proper that it should end as it began, by an
exhibition of might over right, and by a blow at
the vitals of the nation. Ii was meet that a
scheme conceived illegitimately, and apparently
engineered by the skill of the special adviser of
the crown, the Attorney General. should be sup
ported by q capricious bench and violated law,
and end in Il still born death. The story
of that Convention will some day be told by an
impartial historian. Let the day of party anger
pass by, and its history will be one of minis
teriai wrongs, corruption, and sycophancy.
Kamehameha III. gave q gift to his people,
Us a man bestows an estate to a bosom benefac-
tor or friend, in fee simple, saying to him,
. there, take this "a your heritage, and keep it
inviolate as q monument of my affection for
you enjoy its possession, and remember it as
my gift" The sons of the donor, after his
death, claim the land, destroy the deed, and by
force take back the possession of the estate. So
have our Ministry done with the gift of Kauike-
aouli.
We have no heart to review in extenso this
backward step, which no loyal patriot can think
OF without the blood boiling in MS veins.
But this we will say, that the foundation for
future trouble has been laid, that will as surely
come, as winter follows summer. According to
the logic of the Ministry themselves, no one
Estate can act for the whole, except by revolu-
tionary power; therefore the new Constitution
even though it be as pure and faultless, as the
gospel Of truth-rests only on 4 revolutionary
basis. Apologize for it as you can. it has no
other foundation. If, then, the example which
has now been initiated. shall in the course of
time breed popular discontent-if FIVE, ten, or
twenty years hence, Princeville or any other
plantation shall become the scene of popular
outbreak, it's buildings burned, its overseers and
proprietor murdered, Mt the feet of the present
Cabinet alone can rest the responsibility of civil
war and revolution. May God grant that that
day, if ever decreed 10 stain Hawaiian History.
may be far distant.
There is an overriding Providence in the affairs
of States, as well as of men. and often times
events arc permitted to transpire in order to
bring about changes which in no other way could
50 readily be wrought. The Southern rebellion
is an instance of it, in which Providence has
permitted civil war for a wise purpose, which
will result in liberating four million slaves,
though at 4 cost of money and life. which could
never have been assented to by peaceable over
lures. So too, in our present national crisis,
infinite wisdom may, by apparently revolution
airy means, permit the laying of the foundations
for changes, now little dreamed of. We are
taught by Holy Writ to believe. that the tri-
um ph of the wicked is short"