Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894, Appendix II, Affairs in Hawaii
Mr. Willis to Mr. Gresham.
This communication simply transmits minister’s salary account.
W. A. Cooper,
U. S. Dispatch Agent,
Post-Office Building,
San Francisco, Cal.:
Forward following telegram to Hon. A. S. Willis, U. S. minister, Honolulu, by steamer Mariposa to-morrow.
Willis,
Minister, Honolulu:
Your numbers 14 to 18, inclusive, show that you have rightly comprehended the scope of your instructions, and have, as far as was in your power, discharged the onerous task confided to you.
The President sincerely regrets that the Provisional Government refuses to acquiesce in the conclusion which his sense of right and duty and a due regard for our national honor constrained him to reach and submit as a measure of justice to the people of the Hawaiian Islands and their deposed sovereign. While it is true that the Provisional Government was created to exist only until the islands were annexed to the United States, that the Queen finally, but reluctantly, surrendered to an armed force of this Government illegally quartered in Honolulu, and representatives of the Provisional Government (which realized its impotency and was anxious to get control of the Queen’s means of defense) assured her that, if she would surrender, her case would be subsequently consider by the United States, the President has never claimed that such action constituted him an arbitrator in the technical sense, or authorized him to act in that capacity between the Constitutional Government and the Provisional Government. You made no such claim when you acquainted that Government with the President’s decision.
The solemn assurance given to the Queen has been referred to, not as authority for the President to act as arbitrator, but as a fact material to a just determination of the President’s duty in the premises.
In the note which the minister of foreign affairs addressed to you on the 23d ultimo it is stated in effect that even if the Constitutional Government was subverted by the action of the American minister and an invasion by a military force of the United States, the President’s authority is limited to dealing with our own unfaithful officials, and that he can take no steps looking to the correction of the wrong done. The President entertains a different view of his responsibility and duty. The subversion of the Hawaiian Government by an abuse of the authority of the United States was in plain violation of international law and required the President to disavow and condemn the act of our offending officials, and, within the limits of his constitutional power, to endeavor to restore the lawful authority.
On the 18th ultimo the President sent a special message to Congress communicating copies of Mr. Blount’s reports and the instructions given to him and to you. On the same day, answering a resolution of the House of Representatives, he sent copies of all correspondence since March 4, 1889, on the political affairs and relations of Hawaii, withholding, for sufficient reasons, only Mr. Stevens’ No. 70 of October 8, 1892, and your No. 3 of November 16, 1893. The President therein announced that the conditions of restoration suggested by him to the Queen had not proved acceptable to her, and that since the instructions sent to you to insist upon those conditions he had not learned that the Queen was willing to assent to them. The President thereupon submitted the subject to the more extended powers and wider discretion of Congress, adding the assurance that he would be gratified to cooperate in any legitimate plan which might be devised for a solution of the problem consistent with American honor, integrity, and morality.
Your reports show that on further reflection the Queen gave her unqualified assent in writing to the conditions suggested, but that the [Page 1284] Provisional Government refuses to acquiesce in the President’s decision.
The matter now being in the hands of Congress the President will keep that body fully advised of the situation, and will lay before it from time to time the reports received from you, including your No. 3, heretofore withheld, and all instructions sent to you. In the meantime, while keeping the Department fully informed of the course of events, you will, until further notice, consider that your special instructions upon this subject have been fully complied with.