Cite as: 528 U. S. 495 (2000)
Opinion of the Court
lation, Supplementary Reports, Detailed Ancestry Groups for States (Oct. 1992).
With this background we turn to the legislative enactments of direct relevance to the case before us.
II
Not long after the creation of the new Territory, Congress became concerned with the condition of the native Hawaiian people. See H. R. Rep. No. 839, at 2-6; Hearings on the Rehabilitation and Colonization of Hawaiians and Other Proposed Amendments to the Organic Act of the Territory of Hawaii before the House Committee on the Territories, 66th Cong., 2d Sess. (1920). Reciting its purpose to rehabilitate the native Hawaiian population, see H. R. Rep. No. 839, at 1-2, Congress enacted the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, which set aside about 200,000 acres of the ceded public lands and created a program of loans and long-term leases for the benefit of native Hawaiians. Act of July 9, 1921, ch. 42, 42 Stat. 108. The Act defined "native Hawaiian[s]" to include "any descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778." Ibid.
Hawaii was admitted as the 50th State of the Union in 1959. With admission, the new State agreed to adopt the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act as part of its own Constitution. Pub. L. 86-3, §§ 4, 7, 73 Stat. 5, 7 (Admission Act); see Haw. Const., Art. XII, §§ 1-3. In addition, the United States granted Hawaii title to all public lands and public property within the boundaries of the State, save those which the Federal Government retained for its own use. Admission Act §§ 5(b)-(d), 73 Stat. 5. This grant included the 200,000 acres set aside under the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act and almost 1.2 million additional acres of land. Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 4.
The legislation authorizing the grant recited that these lands, and the proceeds and income they generated, were to
507
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