Hawaiian Coup and Counter-Coup

The republic was declared on the fourth day of July, 1894, and continued, though not in uninterrupted felicity, until the annexation.

Continuing USA Acquires Hawaii,
our selection from America in Hawaii: A History of United States Influence in the Hawaiian Islands by Edmund James Carpenter published in 1899. The selection is presented in five easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in USA Acquires Hawaii.

Time: August 12, 1898
Place: Hawaii

Mr. Thurston almost immediately returned to Washington in the capacity of an agent of the Hawaiian Government to promote annexation. His successors in the legation, the Hon. William R. Castle, and; later the Hon. Francis M. Hatch, were received at Washington with courtesy; and the latter continued to receive all the social attentions which were due him until the accomplishment of annexation discontinued his services.

The Hawaiian people, convinced that annexation to the United States was now not an event of the immediate future, formed a permanent government, and established themselves as firmly as they could as a member of the family of nations. The republic was declared on the fourth day of July, 1894, and continued, though not in uninterrupted felicity, until the annexation.

Meanwhile the Hawaiian question was not forgotten at Washington. It is a matter of some significance that in the summer of 1894 a committee of royalists paid a visit to Washington, and endeavored to secure the cooperation of the Government in a proposed uprising against the Hawaiian Republic. Being informed that the United States would: not interfere in the domestic affairs of Hawaii, the committee is reported to have said to Secretary Gresham that if the United States war-vessels should be recalled from Honolulu the overthrow of the existing Government by a sudden assault could be easily accomplished. The committee on its return bought arms and ammunition on the Pacific coast and shipped them to the islands.

The withdrawal of the naval force of the United States, by order of President Cleveland, occurred in July, 1894, notwithstanding the fear of Admiral Walker, then in command of the Pacific squadron, that evil results would follow. The Champion, a British war-vessel, was left in the harbor; and the royalists and their English sympathizers were elated. The royalist faction openly asserted that the withdrawal of the American naval force was for the purpose of affording a chance for a revolt.

The revolt came in January, 1895, and was promptly met and suppressed. This revolt, the trial, the imprisonment in her own apartments of the ex- Queen, and her subsequent abdication constitute a story of Hawaiian history, picturesque and vigorous, but not closely connected with the history of American influence in the islands.

The action of President Cleveland in the Hawaiian matter resulted in an exhaustive investigation by the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, of which Senator Morgan of Alabama, a member of the President’s own party, was the chairman. The report of this investigation fills a large volume. As a whole, it absolved President Cleveland from the imputation of having committed any irregularity or impropriety, but declared that, had he intended to compel obedience to his decision by using force to assist in the re-enthronement of the Queen, he would have committed an act of war, and one entirely beyond his power. It discussed the question of the landing of the troops from the Boston, and the claim of the Queen that it was this display of force which caused her downfall. This latter contention was not sustained, the report deciding that the act of the Queen, two days before the landing of the troops, in declaring her intention of abrogating the constitution she had sworn to uphold, was in itself an act of abdication ; that an interregnum in executive authority existed when the Boston, conveying the United States Minister, arrived in the harbor; and that the act of Minister Stevens and Captain Wiltse of the Boston in directing the landing of the troops was for the purpose only of protecting the lives and property of American citizens until this interregnum should have ceased to exist.

This report was made public, together with a minority report. Thereafter the Hawaiian question assumed a partisan political aspect. The adherents of President Cleveland ignored the findings of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and sturdily insisted to the last that the downfall of the Queen was hastened and carried into effect by the unlawful acts of Minister Stevens. Hence, they argued that annexation, however desirable, should not occur until an expression of the popular will in the islands should be obtained. Moreover, the opponents of annexation urged the distance of the islands from our coast, their uselessness as a naval strategic point, the varied nationalities of the inhabitants, the alleged dislike of the native people to absorption and to the extinction of their nationality, as reasons why no further steps should be taken.

On the other hand, the advocates of annexation urged the great preponderance of American capital, sentiment, and influence in the islands, declared that they were invaluable from a military and naval point of view, and urged that the Hawaiian Government had, under international law, a perfect constitutional right to form a political union with this or any other country, and showed the vast commercial advantages which would accrue to this country from the possession of an outpost in the mid-Pacific. They quoted the prophecy of William H. Seward, that the Pacific, with its coasts and islands, is destined to become in the future the great theatre of the world’s affairs, and urged that in the Hawaiian Islands was the commercial key to the Pacific.

Thus, throughout the administration of President Cleveland the controversy was waged. The revolt of the adherents of the ex-Queen, in 1895, created great interest throughout the United States; and the force of public opinion caused the naval guard, which had been withdrawn from the harbor of Honolulu, to be promptly reestablished. An epidemic of cholera, imported into the islands from the East, also attracted interest and caused anxiety; and the vigorous measures adopted by the Government to stamp it out caused wide admiration, and increased the confidence of the American people in the character and ability of the men who held the control of Hawaiian affairs.

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