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The second of two consecutive broadcasts on the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy brought Thurston Twigg-Smith and Davianna Pōmaikaʻi McGregor back to reassess the previous week's central dispute: was the overthrow a revolution or an invasion? The programme opened with each guest making the strongest possible case for the other's position, an exercise that revealed substantive arguments on both sides, before the principals resumed their own lines. McGregor maintained that Queen Liliuokalani was an effective and beloved leader who chose not to resist the landing of American troops in order to spare Hawaiian lives, and that the absence of armed opposition could not be read as popular consent to the removal of the monarchy. Twigg-Smith contended that the Queen had alienated even her own supporters when she attempted to proclaim a new constitution, and he disputed the legal significance of the congressional Apology Resolution's factual recitals. Listener callers pressed both guests on the relationship between the historical events and contemporary sovereignty claims.
Transcript
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Companion newspaper commentaries
Commentaries by the guests, published in The Honolulu Advertiser around the broadcast.
