Statehood for Hawai'i was being considered as far back as the 1850s, during the reign of King Kamehameha III.
The king — fearing his isolated and defenseless Islands could be overtaken by foreign powers — began secret negotiations with the United States with the intent of making Hawai'i an American state.
Those talks came to an end when the king died on Dec. 15, 1854, and his successor, Crown Prince Alexander Liholiho, as well as powerful U.S. northerners, wanted nothing to do with such a treaty.
However, the dramatic events surrounding the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893 brought the prospects of statehood back into consideration — especially after Hawai'i became a U.S. territory in 1900.
Throughout the first half of the 20th century, the campaign for statehood gained momentum, spurred on by advocates such as territorial Gov. Wallace R. Farrington, and congressional delegates Jonah Kuhio Kalaniana'ole, Victor S.K. Houston and Samuel Wilder King. Later, the charge was led by Delegate John Burns, who went on to become a three-term state governor.
At the same time, forces opposed to statehood argued that joining the 48 Mainland states would foster communism within the plantation labor unions or insure a Japanese stranglehold on Island business and politics. Others claimed that a better approach would be for Hawai'i to seek commonwealth status, similar to that of Puerto Rico.
After World War II, the cry for statehood began to build to a crescendo among Hawai'i's residents in general as well as members of Hawai'i's Republican and Democratic parties.
But when a statehood bill introduced by then congressional Delegate Joseph Farrington failed in the Senate in 1947, pro-statehood forces decided the territory's "second-class citizens" should try a different tactic and hold a constitutional convention for the purpose of drafting a state constitution to be presented to Congress.
The territorial Legislature voted in favor of the idea, and on April 4, 1950, the convention went to work. By October, the convention's draft document had been approved by the Legislature, and on Nov. 7, the measure was ratified in a general election by a 3-to-1 margin.
Meanwhile, President Harry S Truman had endorsed legislation that would make both Hawai'i and Alaska states. The statehood process stalled momentarily through the Korean War years but picked up steam in the second half of the 1950s.
In 1956, Delegate Burns crafted a risky (and much-maligned on the home front) strategy by which Hawai'i could gain statehood. Since some members of Congress opposed Alaska statehood and others opposed Hawai'i statehood, it was decided by the Democratic legislators to offer a separate bill to bring Alaska into the union first in order to limit the opposition.
Once Alaska succeeded in becoming a state in June 1958, Hawai'i's bid for admission became virtually undeniable. On August 21, 1959 — 105 years after King Kamehameha III had tried and failed — President Dwight D. Eisenhower proclaimed Hawai'i a state.
