Sovereign vs sovereignty — and the question of who may sit on the throne.

Sovereign (noun / adjective) — a person, body, or entity that holds supreme authority. A monarch is a sovereign. An independent state is a sovereign. In law, the word points to the holder of supreme authority: the king, the queen, the people, the state itself.

Sovereignty (noun) — the condition or right of supreme authority. It is the legal-political principle that a people or state governs itself, free from external control. Sovereignty is the property; the sovereign is who or what holds it.

Simple test: "The Hawaiian Kingdom was a sovereign state" (it held supreme authority). "Hawaiian sovereignty is the subject of ongoing legal claims" (the right or condition itself).

How the movements differ on this distinction

• Kingdom-restoration movements (e.g., the acting Hawaiian Kingdom government, the Polynesian Kingdom of Atooi, Reinstated Hawaiian Government) argue the sovereign already exists — the Hawaiian Kingdom as a continuing state under international law — and that what is needed is recognition and the seating of its lawful officers. To them, sovereignty was never lost; only its exercise was interrupted.
• Self-determination / nation-within-a-nation movements (e.g., Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi, OHA-aligned federal recognition efforts) focus on sovereignty as a right to be exercised by the Native Hawaiian people, typically through a new governing entity recognized by the United States or the international community.
• Independence / de-occupation movements argue Hawaiian sovereignty is held by the Kingdom as a state (sovereign) and that the people of that state — Hawaiian subjects of any ancestry — are the rightful holders of its political authority.

The disagreement is not over whether sovereignty matters. It is over who or whatthe sovereign is: a restored monarch, a new Native Hawaiian nation, or the continuing Kingdom itself.

On December 11, 1872, King Kamehameha V died without naming a successor and without issue. The 1864 Constitution provided that when the throne became vacant and no successor had been appointed, the Legislative Assembly would elect the next monarch from among the eligible Hawaiian aliʻi (chiefs).

The Assembly first elected William Charles Lunalilo on January 8, 1873. Lunalilo, popularly called "the People's King," had himself asked for a non-binding popular vote on January 1, 1873, which he won overwhelmingly — but the legally operative act was the Legislature's vote the following week. Lunalilo reigned just over one year and died on February 3, 1874, also without naming a successor.

A second election followed. On February 12, 1874, the Legislative Assembly chose David Laʻamea Kalākaua over Queen Emma (widow of Kamehameha IV) by a vote of 39 to 6. Riots broke out among Emma's supporters at the courthouse; U.S. and British marines were landed at the request of the Hawaiian government to restore order. Kalākaua took the oath that same day.

Why this matters today. Because two consecutive Hawaiian monarchs (Lunalilo and Kalākaua) reached the throne by legislative election rather than direct inheritance, there is a documented Hawaiian constitutional precedent for selecting a monarch when no clear hereditary successor exists. This is the historical anchor for the modern argument that a future Hawaiian sovereign could — or even should — be selected by a representative body or popular process.

The differing views, fact-checked

Short answer: no — not in a direct line of descent from Kamehameha I, but yes — through shared aliʻi ancestry going back several generations earlier.

Kalākaua belonged to the House of Kalākaua, a separate royal house from the House of Kamehameha. He was not the son, grandson, or great-grandson of Kamehameha I (Kamehameha the Great). His parents were the High Chief Caesar Kapaʻakea and the High Chiefess Analea Keohokālole — both aliʻi of Hawaiʻi island, but not descendants of Kamehameha I himself.

The genuine connection runs further back. Kalākaua's documented ancestors include ʻAikanaka and, several generations earlier, Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku, the 17th–18th-century ruling chief of Hawaiʻi island. Keaweʻīkekahialiʻiokamoku is also an ancestor of Kamehameha I — through Kamehameha's grandfather Keōua Nui's line. Kalākaua and Kamehameha I therefore shared a common ancestor several generations back, which is why Kalākaua qualified as an eligible aliʻi for the throne in 1874.

Kalākaua also descended from Keaweaheulu Kaluaʻāpana, one of the principal counselors and a cousin-in-arms of Kamehameha I during the unification wars. This is the relationship most often cited in 19th-century court genealogies and is the basis for the claim of continuity with the Kamehameha era — not direct descent from Kamehameha I, but unbroken aliʻi lineage from the same ruling families of Hawaiʻi island.

Primary sources: Kamakau, Ruling Chiefs of Hawaiʻi (1961 ed.); Kuykendall, The Hawaiian Kingdom, Vols. I–III; Liliʻuokalani, Hawaiʻi's Story by Hawaiʻi's Queen (1898); Hawaiian Kingdom Constitutions of 1864 and 1887; Legislative Assembly election records of January 8, 1873 and February 12, 1874.