While they waited, the cabinet was assembled in the blue room, to which they had been summoned by the queen. Here a striking scene took place. Liliuokalani placed before them a copy of the new constitution and bade them sign it, saying that she proposed to promulgate it at once. She met with an outspoken opposition.
"Your Majesty, we have not read that constitution," said Mr. Parker, Secretary of Foreign Affairs. "And before we read it we must advise you that this is a revolutionary act. It cannot be done."
An angry reply came from the queen, and an animated discussion followed, in which the cabinet officials said that a meeting had just been held with the foreign representatives and that if she persisted there was danger of an insurrection.
"It is your doing," she replied. "I would not have undertaken this step if you had not encouraged me to do so. You have led me to the brink of a precipice and are now leaving me to take the leap alone. Why not give the people this constitution? You need have no fear. I will bear the brunt of all the blame afterwards."
The cabinet stood firm, Mr. Peterson, the Attorney General, repeating:
"We have not read the constitution."
"How dare you say that," she exclaimed, "when you have had it in your possession for a month."
The dispute grew more violent as it went on. The cabinet declined to resign when asked by her to do so, whereupon she threatened that if they would not accede to her wishes she would go to the palace door and tell the mob outside that she wished to give them a new constitution but that her ministers had prevented her from doing so.
At this threat three of the ministers left the room and escaped from the building. They remembered the fate of certain representatives who fell into the hands of a Hawaiian mob in 1874. Mr. Parker alone had the courage to remain. He feared that if the queen were left alone she would sign the instrument herself, and proclaim it to the people, telling them that her cabinet refused to comply with her wishes and seeking to rouse against them the wrath of the unthinking mob, whose only idea of the situation was that the white men were opposing their queen.
The cabinet stood between two fires, that of the supporters of the queen on the one hand and that of the white people of Honolulu on the other. The report of the fleeing members raised the excitement of the latter to the boiling pitch. A Committee of Safety was at once organized, and held its first meeting with closed doors.