Practical and Legal Aspects of Annexation [pp. 586-596]

PRACTICAL AND LEGAL ASPECTS OF
ANNEXATION.
fit HE time-consecrated adage that "cir cumstances alter cases" adjusts itself
with peculiar fitness to a retrospect and
prospect of the course and conduct of the
administration at Washington in dealing
with the Hawaiian question. Seldom in
the history of this or any other country,
and nowhere in diplomatic circles, has an
issue so foreign as this one, in its origin,
to the functions of our government, and
to the duties of our representatives,
proved to be so fatal to all who, diplomatically, militantly, or administratively,
either from choice or necessity, have had
any official relation with it. The doctrine
of ult/r7 r,ires in the case, from the standpoint of reality, criticism, or hypercriticism, has been fraught with the most
disastrous consequences to the various
actors on the stage of this international
drama, which has been a strange admixture of comedy, seriocomedy, melodrama, and tragedy.
The United States minister at Honolulu, in the prologue to the first act, committed so much of an ultra vires in declaring a protectorate of the islands by the
United States that even President Harrison immediately disowned the protectorate, when it became known to him.
Captain Wiltse, of the U. S. S. Boston,
in landing the United States marines under
his command, instead of becoming the
great naval hero of the event and bestowing upon himself everlasting renown, was
thought to have committed such a military ultry vires that he soon after became
detached from his ship, and returned
home, a sick and disappointed man, and
it was believed that his death so soon
afterwards was largely hastened by an
indifference or hostility to his conduct in
landing and establishing the United
States marines on shore, more obviously
to support the Provisional Government
than to protect the lives and property of
American citizens.
About this time the Harrison administration ended and the new administration
succeeded to it. Mr. Cleveland found
this foundling from Hawaii on the front
steps of the White House the very first
night of his second term of occupancy of
the Executive Mansion. His unavoidable
duty was to take it in from the cold and to
bestow upon it, for the time being, a fostering care and solicitude; but with no sort
of suspicion, we imagine, that the new
and perhaps unwelcome charge would
become a creature of painful and perpetual
responsibility.
Although the protectorate had been
disowned by his predecessor, the newly
inaugurated President found that Minister
Stevens, without authority, still floated
the national flag of the United States
above the Government Building at Honolulu. The shortness of the time in
which the Harrison administration remained in office after the Provisional
Government succeeded to the Royalist
government, did not permit it to make
any positive decision, or take any definite course of action. Commissioners
representing the new government had
arrived and presented their credentials to
the Secretary of State, but necessarily
that mature deliberation which the vexed
and intricate situation required had to be
postponed and referred to Mr. Cleveland's
5c6