There was no way the treaty could have been ratified, as it provided for immediate statehood. In fact, that provision had deliberately been inserted by the Hawaiians to kill ratification, as I explained at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/xwzLqG7Cw0Q/rxEv6d33JicJ
***
Hawaiians were divided on annexation. Some reluctantly agreed to it,
including the ailing King Kauikeaouli (Kamehameha III), because they feared
that without annexation, the islands would be vulnerable to foreign
filibusters. (Besides, the treaty did provide generous stipends for the royal
family and the chiefs--a provision which might have defeated it in the US
Senate even without the king's death or the statehood clause.) There were
others, however, who strongly disapproved of the idea, and Gavan Daws in his
*Shoal of Time: A History of the Hawaiian Islands* explains how they got
their way:
"Of all the actors in this unresolved drama, the two most important were off
stage a good deal of the time--Chief Justice William Lee and Prince Alexander
Liholiho, both of whom were absent from Honolulu for months on end in 1854.
During the prolonged negotiations Lee was traveling among the outer islands,
ostensibly on judicial business. All drafts of the treaty were sent to him,
and he took his time about sending them back. Lee was strongly against
annexation, just as Wyllie was, [see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Crichton_Wyllie on Robert Crichton
Wyllie, the Scotsman who served as Hawaii's Foriegn Minister] and he hoped
that if the treaty could be delayed long enough the need for it would go
away. As long as there was a possibility of annexation the United States
would not permit a filibuster. At the same time Lee wanted to make sure that
the treaty, if it ever got to Washington, would be unacceptable. So he
arranged for a clause to be included guaranteeing that the islands would
enter the Union as a state, not a territory, and that native Hawaiians would
have all the rights and privileges of American citizens. This would never
pass the United States Senate; it was a century ahead of its time and Lee
knew it. A filibuster, then, would be impossible as long as the United States
had a treaty in view, and the United States would never ratify a treaty that
contained a statehood clause. With any luck the kingdom would be safe once
more, its independence guaranteed by the great powers, and the future of the
Hawaiian people would be secure, at least for a time.
"Prince Alexander Liholiho cooperated willingly with Lee. He did not like
Americans at all, and he wanted to be king. So he stayed away from Honolulu
as much as he could, knowing that no decision would be made without his
consent, and therefore making his consent all but impossible to achieve.
Wyllie, in the thick of things at Honolulu, was ready to let Lee direct the
action from behind the scenes. In the end Lee succeeded as completely as he
could have wished.
"King Kauikeaouli put his name to the proclamation of December 8 in an
infirm, shaky, disconnected hand. It was probably the last time he signed an
official paper. He died at Honolulu on December 15, 1854. Wyllie hastened to
have Alexander Liholiho proclaimed king as Kamehameha IV..."
http://books.google.com/books?id=w19C8zZC21EC&pg=PA152
With the new king, annexationism went into eclipse (and the treaty, with its
immediate-statehood clause, would be DOA in the US Senate anyway, even if the
old king had lived). The continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom was
secured--for almost four decades, anyway.
Naturally, the British, through Wyllie and and through British Consul-General
Miller, were strong opponents of annexation: "If Hawaiians signed away their
sovereignty, Miller said repeatedly, they would be delivering themselves to a
country which practiced race hatred, slavery, vigilantism, and lynch law,
which was filled with crime and corruption, and which had a congenital hatred
of aristiocracy." As it turned out, Alexander Liholiho and his brother Lot
needed no persuading; when they had visited the US in 1850 (with Gerrit Judd)
they had more than once been mistaken for African Americans--a humiliating
experience for Hawaiians of royal blood...
http://books.google.com/books?id=w19C8zZC21EC&pg=PA150