Made it through the countdown!
In this final posting in the countdown, I wanted to draw your attention to a document that is easily accessible: Proclamation 3309, the official document declaring Hawaii a state. This is one of the documents that was received by the Secretary General of the UN as A/4088/Add.5 and submitted to the General Assembly in the passing UN resolution 1469, the Cessation of the transmission of information under Article 73e of the Charter in respect of Alaska and Hawaii.
I just wanted to quickly point out that of the three propositions on the ballot, only one of them was pertinent to the three options required by the United Nation towards the removal of a territory from the UN list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, as required. “Shall Hawaii be immediately admitted into the Union as a State?” is the only question asked the people in regard to their choice for self-determination.
If anyone has wondered why those other two question, were put on the ballot, they were put there as a technicality, to submit to the international body, that the plebiscite offered three questions.
The plebiscite should have read, Should Hawaii remain a territory, be a state, or be independent?
Thank you for reading the statehood countdown.
go to original
ADMISSION OF THE STATE OF HAWAII INTO THE UNION BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS the Congress of the United States by the act approved on March 18, 1959 (73 Stat.4), accepted, ratified, and confirmed the constitution adopted by a vote of the people of Hawaii in an election held in November 7, 1950, and provided for the admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union on an equal footing with the other States upon compliance with certain procedural requirements specified in that act; and
WHEREAS it appears from the information before me that a majority of the legal votes cast at an election on June 27, 1959, were in favor of each of the propositions required to be submitted to the people of Hawaii by section 7 (b) of the act of March 18, 1959; and
WHEREAS the Governor of Hawaii has certified to me the results of the submission to the people of Hawaii of the three propositions set forth in section 7 (b) if the act of March 18, 1959, and the results of the general election; and
WHEREAS I find and announce that the people of Hawaii have duly adopted the propositions required to be submitted to them by the act of March 18, 1959, and have duly elected the officers required to be elected by that act:
NOW, THEREFORE, I DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, President of the United States of America, do hereby declare and proclaim that the procedural requirements imposed by the congress on the State of Hawaii to entitle that Stated to admission into the Union have been complied with in all respects and that admission of the Stated of Hawaii into the Union on an equal footing with the other States of the Union are now accomplished.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington this Twenty-First day of August in the year of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Fifty Nine, and of the independence of the United States of America the One Hundred and Eighty Fourth.
“(Signed) Dwight D. Eisenhower By the President.
Christian A. Herter, Secretary of State.”