Page:Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen.pdf/39

the month of May, 1864, the king issued a call for a constitutional convention, subsequently making a tour of the islands to explain his plans to the electors. In July of that year the convention assembled in Honolulu; but its time being given to what Kamehameha considered useless deliberations instead of business, on Aug. 13 he declared the convention dissolved, dismissed the delegates, publicly abrogated the constitution of 1852, and one week after that date he proclaimed a new constitution of his own devising, under which Hawaii was happily ruled for twenty-three years. There will be no disputing the fact that this was a period of increasing prosperity; yet until the late King Kalakaua was constrained by the foreign element to abrogate this constitution (which my brother did much against his own will and better judgment in 1887), all parties had lived together in harmony throughout the kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands, under a constitution devised and promulgated by one man, and he of the race of the Hawaiian chiefs. I hope this fact will be recalled when I come to speak of the history of the reign of my brother Kalakaua, and my own administration of public affairs. Let it be repeated: the promulgation of a new constitution, adapted to the needs of the times and the demands of the people, has been an indisputable prerogative of the Hawaiian monarchy.