Douglas Alexander: “what do we have here on the issue of ``just another tribe''? Under the United States law, as we have said several times…”

“what do we have here on the issue of ``just another tribe''? Under the United States law, as we have said several times, there are specific requirements for the recognition of an Indian tribe. The U.S. Government does recognize those tribes. But it has not created any tribe. This would be the creation, the establishment of a new sovereign government. Here is what the law says: The tribe must have operated as a sovereign for the last 100 years. Native Hawaiians have not. It says: Tribes must be a separate and distinct community. Native Hawaiians are not. They live in every State of the United States of America; 160,000 live outside of Hawaii. Only 20,000 live on the Native Hawaiian homelands. It further says: A tribe must have had a preexisting political organization. The Native Hawaiians did not. That is why, I suppose, the brief of the State of Hawaii acknowledged in the Supreme Court of the United States, in 1998, ``The tribal concept simply has no place in the context of Hawaiian history.'' In the history of our country, as it grew and developed, there have been many wrongs. The men who wrote our Constitution, setting our high goals, were only men. And women didn't even have the right to vote in the United States until 100 years ago. Those who wrote the Constitution locked out the press. The press would say today that is a wrong. Those who wrote the Constitution, many of them, owned slaves. That was a terrible wrong.…”