CHAPTER VII
QUEEN EMMA
The contest for the succession which resulted in the elevation of my family—the Keaweaheulu line—to royal honors is of course a matter of history. Since the king had refused to nominate his successor, the election was with the legislature. It must not be forgotten, however, that the unwritten law of Hawaii Nei required that the greatest chief, or the one having the most direct claim to the throne, must rule. The legislature could not choose from the people at large, but was confined to a decision between rival claimants having an equal or nearly equal relation in the chiefhood to the throne.
Queen Emma’s claim was not derived through her own family, but as the widow of Liholiho, one of the Kamehamehas. The great-grandfather of Kalakaua (the other claimant), and Kamehameha I. were own cousins; and, as I have already noted, it was to this ancestor and to other chiefs of our family that the late dynasty had owed its succession, and the uniting of the kingdoms of Hawaii under one government.
Now, it is not denied that Queen Emma had a rightful candidacy. It has already been seen that the king hesitated, and finally failed to decide between her rights
