Page:Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen.pdf/229
CHAPTER XXXI
THE KING THREATENED AND OPPRESSED
After all, the anticipated trip was never taken. I am at a loss to explain the causes of its failure, but I understood that there was some friction in the cabinet. That body was now the absolute monarch of the kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands. Its members, Messrs. Austin, Damon, C. W. Ashford, with L. A. Thurston as its chief, defied the king to his face, and openly insulted him in his own palace. In one of their official documents they use to him the following language:—
“The government in all its departments must be conducted by the cabinet. Your Majesty shall, in future, sign all documents and do all acts which, under the laws of the constitution, require the signature or act of the sovereign, when advised so to do by the cabinet, the cabinet being solely and absolutely responsible for any signature of any document or act so done or performed by their advice.”
As His Majesty very naturally demurred to such construction of even their own constitution, the cabinet appealed to the supreme court, who to the number of five justices, the first named being Albert F. Judd, and the last Sanford B. Dole, very consistently with the public record of these gentlemen, declared that the king was wrong, and that all power was placed in the hands