the evidence taken by the sub-committee under circumstances more favorable to judgment leads the committee to different conclusions. The Republican members concurred with Senator Morgan in the essential findings of the report, which was written by him; but they dissented from him on five points, viz.:

1. They condemn the appointment of Commissioner Blount as unconstitutional.

2. They say the executive orders placing the navy in the harbor of Honolulu under the orders of Mr. Blount or Mr. Willis were without the authority of law.

3. They hold that the order of Mr Blount to Admiral Skerrett to lower the flag was unlawful and susceptible of being construed as un friendly to the provisional government, and they regard the inter course of Mr. Blount and Mr. Willis with the deposed queen as violative of international law and unwarranted.

4. They consider that the president had no right to reopen the predetermined legality of the provisional government.

5. They regard any discussion of the personal intentions or good faith of either Mr. Blount or Mr. Willis as immaterial, as what they did in regard to the reinstatement of the queen was simply the performance of a task plainly commanded of them by this administration.

The other Democrats of the committee-Senators Butler, Turpie, Daniel, and Gray, disagreed with the majority upon the principal points of this report, and submitted a minority statement saying:

“We can not avoid the conviction that the inopportune zeal of Minister Stevens in the project of annexation of the Sandwich Islands to the United States caused him to exceed the proper limits of his official duty and of his diplomatic relations to the government and people of those islands. His conduct as the public representative of this government was directly conducive to bringing about the condition of affairs which resulted in the overthrow of the queen, the organization of the provisional government, the landing of the United States troops, and the attempted scheme of annexation; and upon this conclusion his conduct is seriously reprehensible and deserving of public censure."

Senators Butler and Turpie added a very brief report of their own, in which they said that while the question of annexation was not submitted to the committee, except incidentally, they think it not improper to say they are heartily in favor of the acquisition of those islands by the United States in a proper manner, but not by taking advantage of internal dissensions for which they believe the United States in some manner responsible.

The majority report was justly considered a very important and masterly state paper; and it evoked wide interest and discussion. Some of its more noteworthy paragraphs are as follows:

"In dealing with a grave subject, now for the first time presented in America, we must consider the conditions of public sentiment as to monarchic government, and we shall derive also material help from the light of English history. In the Western hemisphere, except as to the colonial relation, which has become one of mere political alliance chiefly for commercial reasons, and does not imply in any notable case absolute subjection to imperial or royal authority, royalty no longer exists. When a crown falls in any kingdom of the Western hemisphere it is pulverized, and when a sceptre departs it departs forever, and American opinion can not sustain any ruler in the attempt to restore them, no matter how virtuous and sincere the reasons may be that seem to justify him.

The precise hour when, or the precise conditions under which, the American minister recognized the provisional government is not a matter of material importance. It was his duty, at the earliest safe period, to assist by his recognition in the termination of the interregnum, so that citizens of the United States might be safely remitted to the care of that government for the security of their rights.

He gave to them the protection they had the right to demand, and, in respect of his action up to this point, so far as it related to Hawaii, his opinions as to annexation have not affected the attitude of the United States government, and the committee find no cause of censure either against Minister Stevens or Captain Wiltse, of the Boston.

The recognition of the provisional government was lawful and authoritative, and has continued without interruption or modification up to the present time. It may be justly claimed for this act of recognition that it has contributed greatly to the maintenance of peace and order in Hawaii, and to the promotion of the establishment of free, permanent, constitutional government in Hawaii, based upon the consent of the people.

The complaint of Liliuokalani in the protest that she sent to the president of the United States and dated the 18th day of January, is not, in the opinion of the committee, well founded in fact or in justice. It appears from the evidence submitted with this report that she was, in fact, the author and promoter of a revolution in Hawaii which involved the destruction of the entire constitution and a breach of her solemn oath to observe and support it, and it was only after she had ascertained that she had made a demand upon her native subjects for support in this movement which they would not give to her, that she, for the time, postponed her determination to carry this revolution into effect and made known her determination to do so as soon as she could feel that she had the power to sustain the

movement.

But the president of the United States, giving attention to Liliuokalani's claim that this government had alarmed her by the presence of its troops into the abdication of her crown, believed that it was proper and necessary in vindication of the honor of the United States to appoint a commissioner to Hawaii who would make a careful investigation into the facts, and send the facts and his conclusions to the president for his information.

The commissioner, Mr. Blount, went to Hawaii under circumstances of extreme embarrassment and executed his instructions with impartial care to arrive at the truth, and he presented a sincere and instructive report to the president of the United States touching the facts, the knowledge of which he thus acquired. In the agitated state of opinion and feeling in Hawaii at that time, it was next to im

possible to obtain a full, fair, and free declaration in respect of the facts which attended this revolution, and particularly was this difficult to obtain from the persons who actively participated in that

movement.

An authority was intrusted to Mr. Blount to remove the American flag from the government building in Hawaii, and to disclaim openly and practically the protectorate which had been announced in that country by Minister Stevens, and also to remove the troops from Honolulu to the steamer Boston, This particular delegation of authority to Mr. Blount was paramount over the authority of Mr. Stevens, who was continued as minister resident of the United States at Honolulu; and it raised the question whether the government of the United States can have at the same foreign capital two ministers, each of whom shall exercise separate and special powers.

The committee fail to see that there is any irregularity in such a course as that, or that the power given to Mr. Blount to withdraw the troops from Honolulu or to lower the flag was to any extent either dangerous or interrupting to any other lawful authority existing there in any diplomatic or naval officer. There may be a question as to the particular wording of the order which Mr. Blount gave to Admiral Skerrett for the lowering of the flag and the withdrawal of the troops; but that is a hypercriticism, because the substantial fact was that Mr. Blount executed the command of the president in communicating to Admiral Skerrett such order as the order of the president of the United States.

In the public act by which the provisional government of Hawaii was established, there was a distinct declaration that that government was to continue until Hawaii was annexed to the United States. That declaration, apart from every other consideration, would have justified the United States in an interference for the protection of the provisional government, which would not have been tolerated under other circumstances. That declaration created an intimacy of rela tionship between the United States and the recognized government of Hawaii which is entirely exceptional, and which placed within the reach and control of the United States very largely, if not entirely, the disposal of those questions collateral to that of annexation which might have interfered with the peaceful and appropriate solution of any difficulty which might arise in its execution, so that the provisional government of Hawaii, having thus thrown itself into the arms of the United States in the first declaration of its existence, cannot justly complain that the United States should scrutinize, under the authority thus given, all its pretensions of right thus to dispose of an entire country and people.

Under such circumstances the president of the United States, believing that the information then in possession of the government was not sufficient to justify summary annexation, could not have done justice to himself, to his country, to the people of Hawaii, to the provisional government, or to Liliuokalani, without having made an effort to use his good offices for the purpose of ascertaining wheth er it was practicable that the queen should be restored to her authority, leaving the question to be determined by the people interested in Hawaii whether such restoration would be acceptable to them or not.

If Liliuokalani had been restored to her throne by the consent of the members of the provisional government upon the terms and conditions of the proposition which she signed and delivered to Mr. Willis, the president of the United States would not have been in any sense

responsible for her restoration, would not have espoused the monarchy, nor would he have done anything that was contradictory of American sentiment, opinion, or policy. He would only have been the mutual friend, accepted really by both parties, whose intervention would have secured, with their consent, the final solution of the question.

In the absence of such committal on his part to the claims of Liliuokalani, or resistance on his part to the recognized rights of the provisional government, there is no reason for withholding the approval of the conduct of the president of the United States in thus accepting and executing a function which he was entitled to perform in submitting the question, in due and final form, to the contending parties or factions in Hawaii, whether they preferred to maintain the authority of the provisional government, with whatever results may follow from that, or return to the monarchy under Liliuokalani.

Therefore, your committee conclude to report that the president of the United States has not, in this particular, in any wise been a party to any irregularity or any impropriety of conduct in his high office.

The committee also find nothing worthy of criticism in the negotiation of the treaty of annexation with the provisional government of Hawaii.

The report has since furnished the basis of much interesting discussion in the upper branch of congress.

Later Developments.-On January 12, 1894, Secretary of State Gresham sent final instructions to Minister Willis, mainly in the following terms:

"The president sincerely regrets that the provisional government refuses to acquiesce in the conclusion which his sense of right, duty, and due regard of 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 surrendered reluctantly to the armed force which this government had illegally quartered in Honolulu, and that representatives of the provisional government, who realized its impotency and were anxious to get control of the queen's means of defense, assured her that if she surrendered her case would be subsequently considered by the United States, the president has never claimed that such action constituted him arbitrator in a technical sense or authorized him to act in that capacity between the provisional government and the queen. You made no such claim when you acquainted the government with the president's decision, and in the solemn assurance given to the queen it has not been referred to 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.

The subversion of the Hawaiian government by an abuse of the authority of the United States was a plain violation of international law, and it 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 lawful authority. .

Your reports show that on further reflection the queen gave an unqualified assent in writing to the conditions suggested, but that the provisional government refuses to acquiesce in the president's de

Vol. 4.-3.

cision.

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 as to the course of events, you will until further notice consider that your special instructions upon this subject have been fully complied with." On the next day President Cleveland transmitted to

COMMODORE JOHN G. WALKER,
UNITED STATES NAVY.

provisional government and the
was also included.

congress the November and December correspondence between Mr. Willis and President Dole. The dispatch of November 19, reporting the minister's earliest interview with the

queen, had been withheld from congress by President Cleveland in transmitting other correspondence with his message of December 18, but was now included, as there seemed "no longer to be sufficient reason for withholding said dispatches." President Dole's reply to the request of Minister Willis for the abrogation of the restoration of the queen

On January 20, President Cleveland sent in to the house of representatives, the senate not being in session (although his message was addressed "to the congress "), another batch of correspondence between Mr. Willis and President Dole. In the brief message of transmittal he characterized as "most extraordinary" the letter of President Dole to the American minister, of date December 27, 1893, which closed thus:

"I have, therefore, to ask you to inform me with the least delay whether you hold instructions to enforce your policy with the use of arms in any event. I trust that you will be able in reply to give as