In 1893 the last monarch of Hawaii, Queen Lili'uokalani, was overthrown by party of businessmen, who then imposed a provisional government. Soon after, President Benjamin Harrison submitted a treaty to annex the Hawaiian islands to the U.S. Senate for ratification.
Generally speaking, those who opposed the Constitution feared the national government would "<span>Take rights away from the people," since it created a relatively strong federal government over the states. </span>
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What one makes of all this will depend in part on how one understands the American political tradition. Many liberals view the rejection of liberalism as an alarming threat to "liberal democracy" — and American democracy, in particular — along with the institutions and values associated with it, which include representative government, the separation of powers, free markets, and religious liberty and tolerance. Their concerns are valid, insofar as some of liberalism's most vocal critics on the right and left indict the American political project and its founding as both misbegotten and irredeemably liberal.