Morgan Report - Historical Background

Historical Background

At the time the Hawaiian Kingdom was overthrown, President Benjamin Harrison, a Republican expansionist, was only a few weeks from the end of his term. The new Provisional Government of Hawai'i immediately delivered a treaty of annexation to President Harrison, who referred it favorably to the Senate for ratification on February 15, 1893.

Grover Cleveland, a Democrat opposed to expansionism and colonialism, became President on March 4, 1893 and withdrew the treaty from the Senate on March 9, 1893.

James Blount, a Democrat, had been chairman of the U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs during Harrison's term. On March 11, without seeking confirmation from the Senate (though it was in session at the time), President Cleveland appointed Blount to be a special envoy to Hawaiʻi with "paramount" powers and secret instructions to investigate the circumstances of the revolution and the stability of the Provisional Government.

Blount held secret, informal conversations with royalists and annexationists in Honolulu. He invited certain witnesses to sit with him to give formal statements in the presence of a stenographer, to be published later in the Blount Report. These statements were not under oath, and several of them were recanted when made public. Historian Ernest Andrade wrote, "He interviewed only a few people involved in the instigation and carrying out of the revolution. He took no testimony from the officers and enlisted men of USS Boston." He delivered a report to President Cleveland on July 17, 1893 claiming improper U.S. backing for the revolution had been responsible for its success, and that the Provisional Government lacked popular support.

On the basis of Blount's report, President Cleveland began working towards the restoration of the Queen, conditional upon amnesty towards those responsible for the overthrow. Minister Willis was unable to convince the Queen to grant the Committee of Safety amnesty in return for the throne until December 18, 1893, at which point Willis, on behalf of Cleveland, then ordered Hawai'i President Sanford Dole to dissolve the Provisional Government and restore the Queen. Dole flatly refused in a blistering letter decrying Cleveland's interference. Unbeknownst to Willis, on the same day he demanded President Dole to step down, December 18, Cleveland had already given up convincing the Queen to grant amnesty, and sent a message to Congress declaring the revolution improper and decrying the U.S. involvement in it, referring the matter to their authority.

In response the Senate passed a resolution empowering its Foreign Relations Committee to hold public hearings under oath, and cross-examine witnesses, to investigate U.S. involvement in the revolution and also to investigate whether it had been proper for President Cleveland to appoint Blount and give him extraordinary powers to represent the U.S. and intervene in Hawaiʻi without Senate confirmation.

The final result of this investigation is the Morgan Report, submitted on February 26, 1894.