Mr. Foster to Mr. Stevens.
Washington, February 11, 1893.
Sir: Your cipher telegram, dated the 1st instant, and transmitted through the Navy Department’s good offices, was received here at 4:30 p.m. on the 9th instant.
You therein make the following important statement:
To-day, at 9 a.m., in accordance with the request of the Provisional Government of Hawaii, I have placed Government of Hawaii under the United States protection during negotiations, not interfering with the execution of public affairs.
The precise character and scope of the act thus announced by you do not appear from this brief recital. The press, however, prints full details of the occurrences of the 1st instant, as telegraphed from San Francisco on the arrival of the mail steamer Australia at that port on the morning of the 9th, and I therein find what purports, with appearance of general correctness, to be the text of a proclamation issued by you on the 1st instant, which reads as follows:
By authority, to the Hawaiian people:
At the request of the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands, I hereby, in the name of the United States of America, assume protection of the Hawaiian Islands for the protection of life and property, and occupation of the public buildings and Hawaiian soil, so far as may be necessary for the purpose specified, but not interfering with the administration of public affairs by the Provisional Government. This action is taken pending and subject to negotiations at Washington.
John L.
Stevens,
Envoy Extraordinary
and Minister Plenipotentiary of the United
States.
United States Legation, February 1, 1893.
Approved and executed by C. C. Wiltse, captain U. S. N., commanding U. S. S. Boston.
[Page 1180]The manner and degree of the execution of your proclamation by the naval force are not related with particularity in a brief telegraphic report just received from Capt. Wiltse. He merely says:
To-day at 9 a.m., in accordance with request of Provisional Government of Hawaii, the United States minister plenipotentiary placed the Government of Hawaii under United States protection during negotiations, not interfering with the execution of public affairs.
It appears from the press reports that the ceremonial for the execution of your orders consisted in the landing of a battalion from the Boston, its formation at the Government building in concert with three volunteer companies of the Provisional Government, the reading of your proclamation by Lieut. Rush, and the hoisting of the United States flag over the Government building. The Hawaiian flag on other public buildings in Honolulu is stated not to have been disturbed.
The phraseology of your proclamation in announcing your action in assumption of protection of the Hawaiian Islands in the name of the United States would appear to be tantamount to the assumption of a protectorate over those Islands in behalf of the United States with all the rights and obligations which the term implies. To this extent it goes beyond the necessities of the situation and the instructions heretofore given you.
Your existing instructions, and those under which the commanders of naval vessels of the United States act, were and are ample to provide all legitimate material protection in case of need, either in your discretion or at the request of the duly constituted authorities of the Hawaiian Islands, for the lives and property of American citizens endangered or menaced, or for the prevention of lawless and tumultuous acts of disturbance of the public peace and safety. The accordance of such measures of protection, or the unsolicited taking of the needful precautions to those ends, is, however, not to be confounded with the establishment of a protectorate, which is, in fact, the positive erection of a paramount authority over or in place of the duly constituted local government and the assumption by the protector of the especial responsibilities attaching to such formal protection.
It is not thought probable that the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands, in soliciting protection, contemplated more than the cooperation of the moral and material forces of the United States to strengthen its own authority and power as a recognized sovereign Government for the protection of life and property, as stated in your proclamation. Such a degree of protection you were, as I have said, already fully competent to accord, or to exercise in your discretion in case of need.
Your proclamation expresses no reservation as to confirmation of your action by the Government of the United States. Its provisos are, that the assumed function of protection is to be exercised so far as may be necessary for the specified purpose of protecting life and property, without interference with the administration of public affairs by the Provisional Government, and that the action in question “is taken pending and subject to negotiations at Washington.” These qualifications are entirely in the line of my views of the scope and intent of the request made to you by the Provisional Government of the Hawaiian Islands. The omission of reference to the necessary sanction of the Government of the United States is immaterial, for its function of revision and confirmation or disavowal of the acts of its agents is inherrent and exercisable at its discretion.
[Page 1181]So far, therefore, as your action amounts to according, at the request of the de facto sovereign Government of the Hawaiian Islands, the cooperation of the moral and material forces of the United States for the protection of life and property from apprehended disorders, your action is commended. But so far as it may appear to overstep that limit by setting the authority and power of the United States above that of the Government of the Hawaiian Islands, in the capacity of protector, or to impair in anyway the independent sovereignty of the Hawaiian Government by substituting the flag and power of the United States as the symbol and manifestation of paramount authority, it is disavowed.
Instructions will be sent to the commanding officers of the United States naval forces in the Hawaiian Islands confirming and renewing the instructions heretofore given them under which they are authorized and directed to cooperate with you for the preservation of American life and property, and the maintenance of good order in case of need. Your own instructions in the same sense are continued.
You are accordingly authorized, upon the receipt of these instructions, to arrange with the commanding naval officer for the continued presence on shore of such marine force as may be practicable and requisite for the security of the lives and property interests of citizens of the United States, and the repression of lawlessness and public disturbance threatening them, whenever in your judgment it shall be necessary so to do, or when such coöperative measures maybe sought for good cause by the Government of the Hawaiian Islands; being, however, always careful to make due discrimination between these functions of voluntary or accorded protection and the assumption of protectorate over the Hawaiian Islands by the United States. No step should be taken by you, or will be sanctioned by this Government, which might tend to derogate in anyway from the independence of the Government of the Hawaiian Islands, which the United States have recognized as sovereign and with which they treat on terms of sovereign equality.
A telegraphic instruction briefly outlining the substance of this dispatch, will be sent to you, by way of San Francisco, by the mail steamer sailing from that port on the 15th instant.
I am, sir, etc.,