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 improve the advantages which Providence had given them in a fertile soil. They were fast dying out as a race, and their places were being occupied by sturdy laborers from China and Japan. There was presented to the American residents the same problem which confronted their forefathers two centuries before in their contact with the aborigines of the Atlantic coast.

A government was established in Hawaii which had all the elements of a de jure and de facto sovereignty, and had vigorously maintained itself for four years. It sought for incorporation into the American Union. Under all the circumstances the President and Congress of the United States would have been recreant to their trust if they had failed to take advantage of the opportunity.