In 1888, Spreckels sold his newspaper to the Hawaiian Gazette Company. It in turn sold the newspaper in 1898 to Lorrin A. Thurston. Thurston was organizer of the Hawaiian League, which had forced King Kalākaua to agree to the "Bayonet Constitution" of 1887 backed by the Honolulu Rifles armed militia, and make Thurston a cabinet minister. The 1887 constitution stripped the monarchy of most authority, took away many rights of native Hawaiians to vote in elections, and granted voting rights to American residents, even those who did not have citizenship in the kingdom. Thurston had been instrumental to the overthrow of the monarchy and the end of the existence of the Kingdom of Hawaii.