Recognition of native Hawaiians is the primary stated purpose of the Akaka Bill — but the Hawaiian Kingdom was already "recognized" by at least 21 sovereign nations by 1840.

Aided by a British admiral in 1843, the kingdom had resisted a British captain who appeared to have been attempting to annex Hawaii as a new colony. This illustrates the point that the native Hawaiians were far beyond tribal status prior to the Civil War.

By 1850, the kingdom had a bi-cameral legislature and a tri-level court system, and by 1847 the Hawaii Supreme Court was issuing its decisions in what later became the first volume of the Hawaii Reports.

Hawaiians were trading vigorously in international commerce while American Indian "tribal" members, still surviving on subsistence hunting and gathering, were puzzled why their tribal shamans weren’t able to protect them from being overwhelmed by the inexorable westward expansion of an industrialized America.

The 1840 Constitution of the kingdom clearly stated that "God hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the earth in unity and blessedness … " — a clear statement of equality indicating that any attempt to use race or class to create dissension or advance personal agendas would be not be tolerated.

The language of later written case law reflects this concept of "equality" over and over again, right up to the time of the overthrow in 1893.

An inevitable aspect of restoring Hawaiian sovereignty would mean elimination of U.S. control of Hawaii. Assuming such a utopian scheme were successful, all persons capable of proving ancestry dating back to 1898 would be citizens of this new utopia.

It follows that with a reversion to Hawaiian law of 1893, since equality was already encoded in the laws of the kingdom, all citizens, regardless of race, would be eligible for homestead land.

This would leave no room for racial supremacism or irrational expectations of preferred entitlement to any benefits provided by the kingdom government.

If the Akaka Bill should become law, Hawaii would be divided into two sovereign entities. Citizenship would be based strictly on proving possession of a single drop of Hawaiian blood. Such a sovereign entity, as is the case with the current tribal designations, would therefore, like Islamic law, not be subject to criticism, or accountable to any law other than group interest. Said tribe would be empowered to rule according to whatever laws this separate sovereign government saw fit to enact.

U.S. Sen. Dan Akaka is one of the finest persons I have ever known. His intentions, as well as those of most proponents of the bill, are worthy and humane.

Nonetheless, the idiocy of creating a race-based sovereign nation within the 11,000 square miles of these islands, quite frankly, will inevitably be dystopian. It defies logic.

It is alarming that Republican leadership in this state has not been able realistically to assess the damage to individuals and society at large that this bill would wreak, should it ever become law.

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John S. Carroll, a Honolulu attorney, is a former state legislator and recently ran unsuccessfully for governor.

CORRECTION: A previous version of this commentary piece by John S. Carroll about the Akaka BIll gave the wrong year and recap about a historic event. His second paragraph should have read, "Aided by a British admiral in 1843, the kingdom had resisted a British captain who appeared to have been attempting to annex Hawaii as a new colony. This illustrates the point that the native Hawaiians were far beyond tribal status prior to the Civil War."