The Senate having under consideration the resolution submitted by Mr FRYE January 3, 1894, proposing to declare as the opinion of the Senate that, pending the investigation by the Committee on Foreign Relations, there should be no interference on the part of the Government of the United States with affairs in Hawaii Mr. DAVIS said: Mr. PRESIDENT: On the 4th day of March, 1893, there was no question pending between this Government and the Government of Hawaii except the consideration of the treaty of annexation. All preceding questions, whatever they were, had been gathered up into the recognition of that Government, and had been settled in the most solemn form by the conclusion of a convention which had been submitted to the Senate. The Provisional Government of Hawaii had also been recognized by the nations of the civilized world, and from no quarter of the horizon was there any portent whatever of trouble to come. Immediately upon the accession of the present Administration recommendations were made and action was taken which, in the course of their performance and in their consequences, have largely undone, and threaten entirely to undo, the composed condition of affairs which up to that time had existed. Our relations to those islands are now such as to excite the gravest apprehension, and seem to be fraught with consequences which, as they evolve from day to day, no foresight can adequately predict. The widest divergence of opinion exists, the matter is thrown into the sea of debate and public discussion, and it is my purpose, with powers which I regret are not adequate to so great an occasion, to discuss somewhat extensively the past and the present of those transactions. Mr. President, the relations of Hawaii to the United States are and have been peculiar and exceptional. For more than fifty years, as a matter of announced national policy on the part of this Government, acquiesced in by Hawaii and by the nations of the civilized world, those islands have been entailed to the United States, and as to the United States have been in reversion when the time should come when the fleeting monarchy which has existed there should expire. There has not been a Secretary of State since 1840 who has not announced this determination and this policy. Mr.Webster, Mr. Legaré, Mr. Marcy, Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Seward, Mr. Blaine, and all who have held that office have spoken in the voice of their Government in this respect with no uncertain tone, and it has been acquiesced in by foreign nations. |