If Jefferson Davis could reach from the grave to co-sponsor congressional legislation, he would presumably want to plug the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act. He would love the idea of creating a new government separate and distinct from the federal government – without firing a shot. That the enterprise is premised on a blatant racialism might please him too.

The U.S. Supreme Court said, shortly after the Civil War, that we have “an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible states.” But that was so 1868. In 2005, Congress is preparing to allow anyone with Native Hawaiian blood to pick up and leave. That this is even being discussed shows that multiculturalism, if its logic is fully played out, is the ideology of national suicide.

The bill, sponsored by Hawaii Sen. Daniel Akaka, defines as a “Native Hawaiian” anyone who is a direct descendant of the aboriginal people living there before 1893. This is a version of the old, infamous “one drop” test. These Native Hawaiians – roughly 240,000 in Hawaii – would convene an Interim Governing Council, a little like in Iraq. It would write a constitution establishing a Native Hawaiian government that would then negotiate with the federal government over, among other things, what lands would be transferred to it.

The bill has six Republican co-sponsors in the Senate, and a real chance to pass. Apparently, a deal was cut between the Alaskan and Hawaiian delegations, with the Hawaiians supporting drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in exchange for Alaskan support for Native Hawaiian secession. Too bad the deal wasn’t for the new entity to be located in the far reaches of ANWR, where asphalt-happy Alaska Rep. Don Young could have then funded its very own four-lane highway. As it is, the Hawaiian proposal strikes at our integrity as a nation.

It is spectacularly unconstitutional. The 15th Amendment forbids racial restrictions on voting. The Akaka bill is wholly dependent on such restrictions. The Supreme Court in 2000 struck down an arrangement that permitted only Native Hawaiians to vote for board members of a state agency providing services to Native Hawaiians. The Akaka scheme takes the unconstitutional principle from that arrangement and makes it the basis for a new government.

The conceit of the bill is that Native Hawaiians will merely get the same status as American Indian tribes, which exist as sovereign, extraconstitutional governments. But such tribal governments weren’t created by congressional legislation. They already existed when territory around them was incorporated into the U.S. Congress can recognize new tribes, but they have to meet standards, including existing as a distinct community and exercising sovereignty. Native Hawaiians do neither.

As Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, a staunch opponent of the measure, points out, they are not geographically segregated, but live throughout the state intermixed with non-natives. Indeed, Native Hawaiians live everywhere in the U.S. Intermarriage rates have been high for more than a century, and almost half of marriages in Hawaii are interracial. This is one reason the Akaka bill would create chaos, with neighbors potentially subject to different governments and rules based solely on their race.

Native Hawaiians never exercised sovereignty either, since the late, not-so-great monarchy of Queen Liliuokalani ruled over everyone in Hawaii regardless of race (how broad-minded of her). The bill leans heavily on a historically tendentious Apology Resolution that passed Congress a decade ago and blamed the U.S. for the queen’s overthrow in 1893, an event that supposedly so victimized Native Hawaiians they now need their own government more than 100 years later. Since when do we feel badly about the fall of monarchs?

The bill represents manifest destiny in reverse, as the cult of ethnic victimization acts to undermine the legitimacy of America and pull it apart at the seams. If it passes, it may well lend support to Hispanic revanchist groups who want to take back the American Southwest. Sound crazy? Give it time.

Rich Lowry is a syndicated columnist. He can be reached via e-mail at: [email protected].