WEBVTT NOTE Grover Cleveland and Hawaiian Annexation: The Case for Self-Determination 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.640 I want to thank the Institute for inviting me, specifically Marshall DeRosa, again, who's 2 00:00:04.640 --> 00:00:10.840 not here. This is my second consecutive year speaking here and second consecutive year 3 00:00:10.840 --> 00:00:15.560 speaking on Grover Cleveland, which I'm a Cleveland scholar and there's not very many 4 00:00:15.560 --> 00:00:21.240 of us. We don't even have enough to have a fan club or anything like that, but he's one 5 00:00:21.240 --> 00:00:26.880 of our greatest and most underestimated presidents and I've wrote a book on him called The Last 6 00:00:26.880 --> 00:00:34.140 Jeffersonian. And I know this conference panel is about secession, and my paper 7 00:00:34.140 --> 00:00:39.300 will cover an episode in American history that's very closely related to it. Marshall 8 00:00:39.300 --> 00:00:44.840 specifically invited me, he and Brian and I spoke at the Stephen D. Lee Institute 9 00:00:44.840 --> 00:00:50.280 last month in Florida. He asked me to join the panel and we talked about topics, 10 00:00:50.280 --> 00:00:53.160 and of course I talked about Lincoln or Jefferson or something like that, and he 11 00:00:53.160 --> 00:01:12.120 There was an attempted annexation of Hawaii by the United States in 1893, and President 12 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:16.920 Cleveland, when he came back into office, tried to stop it, and he did stop it. 13 00:01:16.920 --> 00:01:23.040 And what his idea was to allow Native Hawaiians to decide for themselves whether their allegiance 14 00:01:23.040 --> 00:01:25.200 rightfully belonged. 15 00:01:25.200 --> 00:01:28.560 So what is the act of secession? 16 00:01:28.560 --> 00:01:33.320 When broken down to its basic fundamentals, it is the most pure act of self-determination 17 00:01:33.320 --> 00:01:38.880 of peoples, a principle that many Americans profess to believe in, but we know that not 18 00:01:38.880 --> 00:01:42.560 all of them do, at least in actuality. 19 00:01:42.560 --> 00:01:47.640 Jeffersonian conservatives, the philosophy to which Cleveland adhered, and he believed 20 00:01:47.640 --> 00:01:54.760 in, and a lot of us here at this institute believe in Jeffersonian conservatism. 21 00:01:54.760 --> 00:02:00.660 We believe that people have a right to determine their own political future, free from outside 22 00:02:00.660 --> 00:02:02.660 influences. 23 00:02:02.660 --> 00:02:05.560 This principle obviously is best espoused in the Declaration of Independence. 24 00:02:05.560 --> 00:02:10.360 It's a beautiful dedication to self-determination when you read it and read the words that 25 00:02:10.360 --> 00:02:12.240 it uses. 26 00:02:12.240 --> 00:02:16.900 The denial of this cherished right is what made Lincoln's war so wicked, for he decided 27 00:02:16.900 --> 00:02:27.460 Now, it's been said by many historians that the Spanish-American War in 1898 was America's 28 00:02:27.460 --> 00:02:31.260 first step into imperialism, and they can make a good case for it. 29 00:02:31.260 --> 00:02:35.500 But Lincoln's War on the South can also be characterized that way. 30 00:02:35.500 --> 00:02:41.060 This fed a growing movement of jingoism throughout the remainder of the 19th century, which culminated 31 00:02:41.060 --> 00:02:43.140 in the war with Spain. 32 00:02:43.140 --> 00:02:45.260 Now what is jingoism? 33 00:02:45.260 --> 00:02:53.440 It can be defined as extreme nationalism characterized especially by belligerent foreign policy. 34 00:02:53.440 --> 00:02:58.460 And with that definition, let me remind you of Professor Clyde Wilson's distinction between 35 00:02:58.460 --> 00:03:03.300 nationalism and patriotism because people try to interchange those two words. 36 00:03:03.300 --> 00:03:11.260 Patriotism, Dr. Wilson said, is the healthy love of one's country and its people. 37 00:03:11.260 --> 00:03:16.540 Nationalism is an unhealthy love of one's government and the desire to impose it on 38 00:03:16.540 --> 00:03:17.540 others. 39 00:03:17.540 --> 00:03:22.100 And that's what you see with Lincoln and the Republican Party in the late 19th century, 40 00:03:22.100 --> 00:03:24.900 this idea of nationalism, which they adhered to. 41 00:03:24.900 --> 00:03:29.900 Now, President Cleveland did not buy into the jingoistic and imperialistic arguments 42 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:35.260 that were becoming more pervasive in his day or in the suggestion that America needed this 43 00:03:35.260 --> 00:03:40.460 big, large global naval force that everybody was wanting to build in order to achieve these 44 00:03:40.460 --> 00:03:47.140 Goals. Unlike many jingoists, young men like Teddy Roosevelt was a prime example. Cleveland 45 00:03:47.140 --> 00:03:52.060 remembered the war to prevent southern independence, and he never believed war was anything but 46 00:03:52.060 --> 00:03:57.140 bad to the consternation of people like T.R. I mean, T.R. believed that war was good, it 47 00:03:57.140 --> 00:04:00.500 was a healthy thing, it was good for society to have wars. I mean, you showed that you 48 00:04:00.500 --> 00:04:06.700 were a real man if you believed in war. Cleveland didn't believe that. Soon after retaking office 49 00:04:06.700 --> 00:04:13.380 Once in 1893 to begin his second term, Cleveland faced a serious test of American foreign policy 50 00:04:13.380 --> 00:04:17.420 in a situation concerning the Hawaiian Islands and the role the United States played in a 51 00:04:17.420 --> 00:04:19.880 revolution out there. 52 00:04:19.880 --> 00:04:25.220 Hawaii remained an independent nation into the early 1890s, and they were ruled by a 53 00:04:25.220 --> 00:04:32.540 native monarch, but they were in the process at the time of undergoing a very major demographic 54 00:04:32.540 --> 00:04:34.420 change. 55 00:04:34.420 --> 00:04:38.320 The Native Hawaiians were dying out, and they were being replaced by foreigners. 56 00:04:38.320 --> 00:04:41.820 There were Europeans, there were Americans, but there were also a lot of Asian laborers, 57 00:04:41.820 --> 00:04:45.020 cheap laborers from China and Japan that were coming in. 58 00:04:45.020 --> 00:04:49.220 The Native population, they were hanging on by a thread. 59 00:04:49.220 --> 00:04:59.420 About 200,000 in 1800, by 1890, the Native population was about 40,000 by local estimates. 60 00:04:59.420 --> 00:05:02.420 A lot of it by disease and other things. 61 00:05:02.420 --> 00:05:06.580 But you had thousands of these other foreigners that were coming in, particularly the Japanese. 62 00:05:06.580 --> 00:05:09.660 That population was growing very, very fast. 63 00:05:09.660 --> 00:05:13.740 Now sugar production dominated the island economy. 64 00:05:13.740 --> 00:05:19.020 Major plantations, just like we saw in the old south, dominated the economy. 65 00:05:19.020 --> 00:05:22.900 Most of them were controlled by Americans and Europeans. 66 00:05:22.900 --> 00:05:28.060 A small faction of white wealthy families, known as, they called them, outlanders, dominated 67 00:05:28.060 --> 00:05:29.700 Hawaiian society. 68 00:05:29.700 --> 00:05:32.660 They controlled the economy and they controlled the government. 69 00:05:32.660 --> 00:05:37.640 By the early 1890s, the monarch still held on to the monarchy, the native Hawaiians still 70 00:05:37.640 --> 00:05:38.900 held on to it. 71 00:05:38.900 --> 00:05:42.820 But it was basically a figurehead, they didn't have a whole lot of power. 72 00:05:42.820 --> 00:05:44.220 It was the titular head of government. 73 00:05:44.220 --> 00:05:49.460 But the real power was in the parliament, which was controlled by the outlanders. 74 00:05:49.460 --> 00:05:53.980 Now in the United States during this time, as I said, these liberal progressive Republicans 75 00:05:53.980 --> 00:05:55.120 controlled the government. 76 00:05:55.120 --> 00:05:59.060 They controlled it from Lincoln's election in 1860 until 1885 when Cleveland's first 77 00:05:59.060 --> 00:06:03.060 The Republicans controlled it basically for 25 years. 78 00:06:03.060 --> 00:06:07.060 They began pushing for this very aggressive foreign policy. 79 00:06:07.060 --> 00:06:12.060 After conquering the South by crushing the Confederacy and the West by subjugating the Plains Indians, 80 00:06:12.060 --> 00:06:16.060 Republicans turned their attention from wars of subjugation at home 81 00:06:16.060 --> 00:06:22.060 and looked further to the West, to the Asian realm, in this new bout of jingoism. 82 00:06:22.060 --> 00:06:27.060 They began casting an envious eye specifically on the Hawaiian Islands. 83 00:06:27.060 --> 00:06:34.060 Now, conservative, non-interventionist Democrats didn't follow suit for the most part. Some did, but many didn't. 84 00:06:34.060 --> 00:06:43.060 President Tyler, when he was in office, an old southern Democrat, he had extended the Monroe Doctrine to cover the Hawaiian Islands, but that's all he had done. 85 00:06:43.060 --> 00:06:53.060 After the war to prevent southern independence and his annexation movements began to spread, Andrew Johnson was another old Democrat. 86 00:06:53.060 --> 00:07:05.060 He announced that a treaty had been negotiated that would allow Hawaii to voluntarily apply for admission to the Union, voluntarily, on their own accord, not by force. 87 00:07:05.060 --> 00:07:13.060 But progressives in Congress, these progressive Republicans, rejected that voluntary offer. They didn't want it to be voluntary. 88 00:07:13.060 --> 00:07:17.060 They wanted Hawaii by right, if not outright, force. 89 00:07:17.060 --> 00:07:22.060 The inferior Hawaiians, they said, should have no say in the matter. 90 00:07:22.060 --> 00:07:27.980 In 1881, President James A. Garfield, who was described by several papers as a liberal 91 00:07:27.980 --> 00:07:34.220 and a progressive, even though we don't know, he only stayed in office 200 days, he announces 92 00:07:34.220 --> 00:07:39.780 the United States should be the arbiter in the Pacific region and the controller of its 93 00:07:39.780 --> 00:07:45.980 commerce and the chief nation that inhabits Hawaiian shores. 94 00:07:45.980 --> 00:07:50.040 By that time, the federal government had already become officially involved with Hawaii. 95 00:07:50.040 --> 00:08:06.040 President Grant and his Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, in 1875, concluded a treaty with Hawaii, and Fish's words would bind the islands to the United States with hoops of steel. 96 00:08:06.040 --> 00:08:13.040 This was an economic agreement that allowed the islands' major crop of sugar to enter the American market duty-free. 97 00:08:13.040 --> 00:08:18.040 U.S. products could enter the Hawaiian market free of charge as well. 98 00:08:18.040 --> 00:08:23.240 Well, and the treaty prospers for both nations. 99 00:08:23.240 --> 00:08:27.800 Though Hawaii had essentially become an economic colony in the United States, 99% of its products 100 00:08:27.800 --> 00:08:30.960 were sent to the American market. 101 00:08:30.960 --> 00:08:35.160 This was Fish's whole intent, to tie them to the United States. 102 00:08:35.160 --> 00:08:42.600 In 1887, during Cleveland's first term, the two governments renewed that trade agreement, 103 00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:46.480 but the Senate amended it a little bit to include a provision that would give the United 104 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:50.580 and the United States exclusive rights to a naval base at the mouth of the Pearl River, 105 00:08:50.580 --> 00:08:53.700 which became Pearl Harbor. 106 00:08:53.700 --> 00:08:57.980 Cleveland and his secretary of state negotiated this provision. 107 00:08:57.980 --> 00:09:02.340 Now Cleveland believed in the vitality of Hawaii for economic and military purposes 108 00:09:02.340 --> 00:09:03.340 only. 109 00:09:03.340 --> 00:09:10.180 And he agreed with the Republicans for the need for trade and commerce, but he did not 110 00:09:10.180 --> 00:09:15.460 hold their nationalistic views on annexation, which would have destroyed Hawaiian sovereignty 111 00:09:15.460 --> 00:09:27.460 He favored annexation, as long as Hawaiians favored it, as long as they truly wanted to be a part of the United States, not by force. 112 00:09:27.460 --> 00:09:33.460 His policy was basically to uphold the Monroe Doctrine and protect the islands from outside influence. 113 00:09:33.460 --> 00:09:39.460 The British tried to come in at one point and offer the Hawaiians a $2 million loan. 114 00:09:39.460 --> 00:09:45.460 Well, Cleveland blocked that because he realized what the British were up to in Hawaii. 115 00:09:45.460 --> 00:09:50.460 Now, you think on the outside, well, what's the big deal about loaning Hawaii $2 million? 116 00:09:50.460 --> 00:09:56.460 Well, the British said, well, for collateral, we're going to take a share of Hawaiian revenue. 117 00:09:56.460 --> 00:10:03.460 Cleveland didn't like that. He said, I know what you're up to. And so he blocked it and kept him out of Hawaii. 118 00:10:03.460 --> 00:10:04.460 Hawaii. 119 00:10:04.460 --> 00:10:09.300 Now, the federal government have every reason to want, at least to maintain the status quo 120 00:10:09.300 --> 00:10:11.300 in Hawaii, economic reasons. 121 00:10:11.300 --> 00:10:16.660 If it couldn't be annexed, let's keep it an economic colony. 122 00:10:16.660 --> 00:10:20.260 When Benjamin Harrison became president in 1889, remember he was in between Cleveland's 123 00:10:20.260 --> 00:10:26.420 two terms, he ordered the landing of 70 marines from the USS Adams to prevent a coup against 124 00:10:26.420 --> 00:10:31.140 the feeble monarch, King Kalakaua, which I think it's Kalakaua. 125 00:10:31.140 --> 00:10:39.540 Harrison also mandated a permanent U.S. naval base in the area and a naval presence in the 126 00:10:39.540 --> 00:10:40.540 area. 127 00:10:40.540 --> 00:10:46.220 But in 1891, the situation changed dramatically and threatened to overturn the status quo. 128 00:10:46.220 --> 00:10:52.060 The king was weak and feeble, and he wasn't very strong, and he eventually died. 129 00:10:52.060 --> 00:10:58.820 And his sister came to the throne, Lilla Kalani, am I right on that one? 130 00:10:58.820 --> 00:11:04.020 She was very headstrong and highly patriotic, and she wanted to run Hawaii herself. 131 00:11:04.020 --> 00:11:06.780 She wanted to run Hawaii for Hawaiians. 132 00:11:06.780 --> 00:11:08.660 She didn't want the outsiders involved. 133 00:11:08.660 --> 00:11:10.580 She wanted to diminish their influence. 134 00:11:10.580 --> 00:11:16.380 She proposed a new constitution that stripped them all non-Hawaiians of the right to vote. 135 00:11:16.380 --> 00:11:20.300 This threatened the existing power struggle, so there's a problem here with this highly 136 00:11:20.300 --> 00:11:22.860 patriotic young monarch. 137 00:11:22.860 --> 00:11:27.500 So these outlanders had to do something about it. 138 00:11:27.500 --> 00:11:34.660 So on the night of January 14, 1893, the U.S. minister to Hawaii, John L. Stevens, met 139 00:11:34.660 --> 00:11:37.180 secretly with a group plotting the Queen's overthrow. 140 00:11:37.180 --> 00:11:41.740 It was a faction known as the Annexation Club. 141 00:11:41.740 --> 00:11:46.780 Though Harrison, President Harrison and his jingoistic Secretary of State James G. Blaine 142 00:11:46.780 --> 00:11:52.080 denied any knowledge of this coup, I think it's probably likely they knew about the plan 143 00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:54.580 and approved it. 144 00:11:54.580 --> 00:11:58.940 When a queen announced this new constitution, the scheme was launched apparently by orders 145 00:11:58.940 --> 00:12:05.700 from Stevens himself. Apparently he actually ordered U.S. military forces into Hawaii himself. 146 00:12:05.700 --> 00:12:10.540 So obviously the president had to know about it. The U.S. warship, the USS Boston supplied 147 00:12:10.540 --> 00:12:14.820 American troops to assist in the revolt and basically they went around keeping order, 148 00:12:14.820 --> 00:12:19.900 which was an important task in a revolution. The plotters removed the queen without bloodshed 149 00:12:19.900 --> 00:12:25.300 and established a provisional government under the protection of U.S. forces. Native Hawaiians 150 00:12:25.300 --> 00:12:30.900 were stripped of the right to vote and full control was given to the outlanders. Now the 151 00:12:30.900 --> 00:12:35.460 American press did not view this favorably, at least a lot of it. The New York Herald 152 00:12:35.460 --> 00:12:41.140 called it a revolution of, by and for sugar. The New York Times headlined it as the political 153 00:12:41.140 --> 00:12:47.040 crime of the century. This didn't really matter to the plotters. Minister Stevens immediately 154 00:12:47.040 --> 00:12:50.240 recognized the new provisional government. 155 00:12:50.240 --> 00:12:54.920 Unsurprisingly, the new provisional authority asked for annexation to the United States 156 00:12:54.920 --> 00:12:59.880 and the American flag began flying over Hawaiian government buildings. 157 00:12:59.880 --> 00:13:05.520 Minister Stevens announced that the Hawaiian pair is now fully ripe and it is the golden 158 00:13:05.520 --> 00:13:09.360 hour for the United States to pluck it. 159 00:13:09.360 --> 00:13:14.220 President Harrison agreed, calling the Hawaiian monarchy weak and inadequate. 160 00:13:14.220 --> 00:13:20.220 and Secretary of State Blaine drew up a treaty of annexation and the President submitted it to the Senate. 161 00:13:20.220 --> 00:13:24.220 The problem was they couldn't get it ratified before Cleveland came into office. 162 00:13:24.220 --> 00:13:31.220 He had been elected for a second term in 1892, came in on March the 4th, 1893, just a couple of months after the coup. 163 00:13:31.220 --> 00:13:39.220 He did not like the manner in which the Queen was treated and removed, nor the fact that the United States Minister and the Navy had involved in the incident, 164 00:13:39.220 --> 00:13:42.220 which caused, he said, serious embarrassment to the country. 165 00:13:42.220 --> 00:13:47.780 To get a handle on events, he appointed a Georgia Congressman by James Blunt, who had 166 00:13:47.780 --> 00:13:49.100 been in Congress for about 20 years. 167 00:13:49.100 --> 00:13:53.780 He actually chaired the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. 168 00:13:53.780 --> 00:13:57.860 He sent him out there and said, you investigate, find out what happened. 169 00:13:57.860 --> 00:14:03.300 He spent four months investigating and found a military protectorate in the hands of U.S. 170 00:14:03.300 --> 00:14:08.700 troops, which were even conducting regular police duties for the provisional government. 171 00:14:08.700 --> 00:14:27.620 Cleveland said the use of the military against Hawaii was an act of war, committed with the 172 00:14:27.620 --> 00:14:31.660 participation of a diplomatic representative of the United States and without the authority 173 00:14:31.660 --> 00:14:32.660 of Congress. 174 00:14:32.660 --> 00:14:37.500 The investigation showed, he said, beyond all question, that the constitutional government 175 00:14:37.500 --> 00:14:42.100 of Hawaii had been subverted with the active aid of our representative to that government 176 00:14:42.100 --> 00:14:46.780 and through the intimidation caused by the presence of an armed naval force of the United 177 00:14:46.780 --> 00:14:52.860 States, which was landed for that purpose at the insistence of our minister. 178 00:14:52.860 --> 00:14:57.980 Upon the facts developed, it seemed to me the only honorable course for our government 179 00:14:57.980 --> 00:15:03.340 to pursue was to undo the wrong that had been done by those representing us and to restore 180 00:15:03.340 --> 00:15:10.720 or as far as practicable, the status existing at the time of our forcible intervention. 181 00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:16.740 This report by Congressman Blunt found that Ambassador Stevens was guilty of aspiring 182 00:15:16.740 --> 00:15:18.740 to overthrow the Queen. 183 00:15:18.740 --> 00:15:24.060 The Senate launched their own investigation led by an Alabama Senator, John Tyler Morgan, 184 00:15:24.060 --> 00:15:27.240 who was an avid annexationist, and of course you can imagine what he found. 185 00:15:27.240 --> 00:15:28.240 He found the opposite. 186 00:15:28.240 --> 00:15:43.360 Now in order to restore the former government of the islands, Cleveland repudiated the annexation 187 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:46.880 treaty and withdrew it from Senate consideration. 188 00:15:46.880 --> 00:15:52.320 He refused to annex Hawaii in any shape, form or fashion. 189 00:15:52.320 --> 00:15:57.280 But however, he was not able to restore the Queen to her throne. 190 00:15:57.280 --> 00:16:05.000 She had vowed that if she returned to power, she would behead all the rebels and seize their property. 191 00:16:05.000 --> 00:16:06.680 Cleveland asked that that not happen. 192 00:16:06.680 --> 00:16:09.900 He said, why don't you grant an amnesty for everybody? 193 00:16:09.900 --> 00:16:10.900 She refused. 194 00:16:10.900 --> 00:16:14.040 He didn't really get any satisfactory answers. 195 00:16:14.040 --> 00:16:18.000 The new Democratic Congress didn't have any answers either. 196 00:16:18.000 --> 00:16:21.000 They kind of bounced around solutions for several months. 197 00:16:21.000 --> 00:16:24.080 They remained largely indecisive, and Cleveland was too, to be honest. 198 00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:26.040 He was pretty indecisive about what to do. 199 00:16:26.040 --> 00:16:31.120 sort of a the toothpaste out of the tube now how do we get it back in Congress 200 00:16:31.120 --> 00:16:34.920 decided the best option be just to simply recognize the provisional government 201 00:16:34.920 --> 00:16:40.120 they had established after the coup and and and the new president of the 202 00:16:40.120 --> 00:16:47.160 provisional government was a man named Sanford Dole the name sound familiar DOL 203 00:16:47.160 --> 00:16:52.560 interesting how he ended up in power Cleveland really had no other option but 204 00:16:52.560 --> 00:16:58.520 and I think this demonstrates the complications of becoming involved in the internal affairs 205 00:16:58.520 --> 00:17:04.680 of other nations, a lesson we seem not to have learned as of yet. 206 00:17:04.680 --> 00:17:09.200 Despite the setback of failing to restore the status quo antebellum, Cleveland had fought 207 00:17:09.200 --> 00:17:12.920 back against the growing jingoist tide and won. 208 00:17:12.920 --> 00:17:16.840 Its paramount objective was to keep out of the affair and allow Hawaiians to determine 209 00:17:16.840 --> 00:17:17.840 their own future. 210 00:17:17.840 --> 00:17:22.920 The thing I care most about, he said, is the declaration that the people of the islands, 211 00:17:22.920 --> 00:17:27.160 instead of the provisional government, should determine the policy. 212 00:17:27.160 --> 00:17:32.680 The people of Hawaii, he said, were the source of power and control over the islands. 213 00:17:32.680 --> 00:17:35.760 And his policy received praise from the members of both parties. 214 00:17:35.760 --> 00:17:39.960 They were happy because he didn't go blundering into it and try to annex the islands. 215 00:17:39.960 --> 00:17:44.520 He was trying to keep them, at least retain some sovereignty and independence. 216 00:17:44.520 --> 00:17:50.940 Charles Francis Adams Jr. of the famed Adams family wrote him and said, I remember no stand 217 00:17:50.940 --> 00:17:58.360 taken by a government so morally sound and dignified as that now taken by your administration. 218 00:17:58.360 --> 00:18:04.380 It is not easy to see how the United States can protest against the policy of force in 219 00:18:04.380 --> 00:18:10.920 British dealings with semi-civilized natives and races if we ourselves are quite unable 220 00:18:10.920 --> 00:18:17.720 to Resist the Temptation to Have an Occasional Hack at Them on Our Own Account. 221 00:18:17.720 --> 00:18:23.560 Harrison's Attempt to Annex Hawaii and Cleveland's Defeat of that Attempt, wrote Alan Nevins, 222 00:18:23.560 --> 00:18:29.600 one of Cleveland's main biographers, constitute one of the most unjustly neglected episodes 223 00:18:29.600 --> 00:18:32.480 in American diplomatic history. 224 00:18:32.480 --> 00:18:34.920 But however, Hawaii would not remain long independent. 225 00:18:34.920 --> 00:18:39.320 Of course, they were independent on paper, but when the Republicans came back into office 226 00:18:39.320 --> 00:18:45.560 This was William McKinley in 1897, annexation preceded with vigor. 227 00:18:45.560 --> 00:18:49.720 Upon assuming the presidency, McKinley lost no time negotiating a new treaty of annexation 228 00:18:49.720 --> 00:18:51.760 which was sent to the Senate that summer. 229 00:18:51.760 --> 00:18:58.320 Of course, the Japanese began to protest and you can kind of see in this episode hostilities 230 00:18:58.320 --> 00:19:01.120 beginning to emerge between the United States and Japan. 231 00:19:01.120 --> 00:19:06.840 Japan feared that this treaty is going to probably be detrimental to some of our citizens 232 00:19:06.840 --> 00:19:07.840 living in Hawaii. 233 00:19:07.840 --> 00:19:09.200 They were concerned about it. 234 00:19:09.200 --> 00:19:13.500 They were beginning to exercise their influence in that sphere of the world, and they didn't 235 00:19:13.500 --> 00:19:15.980 want the United States in there, but of course they came up short. 236 00:19:15.980 --> 00:19:19.340 The annexation treaty lagged in the Senate for a little bit because you had some stiff 237 00:19:19.340 --> 00:19:24.140 opposition from anti-annexationists and anti-imperialists. 238 00:19:24.140 --> 00:19:30.200 But in August of 1898, after the Spanish-American War, Hawaii was finally annexed. 239 00:19:30.200 --> 00:19:33.860 When it became clear to a majority, and that's the key, a majority, that the islands were 240 00:19:33.860 --> 00:19:37.380 of vital importance to the United States. 241 00:19:37.380 --> 00:19:41.220 It's also used some fear to persuade Hawaiians for the need of this annexation. 242 00:19:41.220 --> 00:19:45.660 They began going around telling people, look, if the Japanese come in here and take over 243 00:19:45.660 --> 00:19:50.020 Hawaii, they're going to completely annihilate Hawaiian culture. 244 00:19:50.020 --> 00:19:51.020 They've done that everywhere they've been. 245 00:19:51.020 --> 00:19:52.020 You better watch out. 246 00:19:52.020 --> 00:19:54.980 They're going to come here and slaughter everybody and destroy the culture of Hawaii. 247 00:19:54.980 --> 00:19:56.740 So they were using fear as well. 248 00:19:56.740 --> 00:20:06.020 Now, to overcome anti-imperialists in the Senate, specifically in the House, they used a different 249 00:20:06.020 --> 00:20:11.540 Technique. Instead of a treaty, they used what they used in Texas in 1845. They didn't negotiate 250 00:20:11.540 --> 00:20:15.220 a treaty because the treaty, according to the Constitution, you have to have two-thirds of vote 251 00:20:15.220 --> 00:20:20.980 in the Senate. So they just used a simple resolution annexing Hawaii, only needs a majority 252 00:20:20.980 --> 00:20:27.780 of the vote. Hawaii is ours, Cleveland wrote after he heard the news. As I look back upon the first 253 00:20:27.780 --> 00:20:33.780 steps in this miserable business, I am ashamed of the whole affair. But although he was unable to 254 00:20:33.780 --> 00:20:42.020 To keep the islands permanently sovereign, many Native Hawaiians still to this day honor President Cleveland for his efforts to protect their native government. 255 00:20:42.020 --> 00:20:48.420 I'm friends, actually, with Cleveland's actual grandson who's still alive, and he went to Hawaii a few years ago, 256 00:20:48.420 --> 00:20:53.620 and when they found out he was President Cleveland's grandson, he said, I was treated like Elvis Presley, literally. 257 00:20:53.620 --> 00:21:00.820 And there's also a big movement to succeed today in Hawaii. I've been in contact with some of the people there, 258 00:21:00.820 --> 00:21:04.820 and they've asked me to come out there some of their conferences to speak in 259 00:21:04.820 --> 00:21:10.060 Hawaii and I said well you'll send me a plane ticket I'll be happy to come it's 260 00:21:10.060 --> 00:21:16.620 a little far to drive to from Mississippi but as Brian said there was 261 00:21:16.620 --> 00:21:21.380 an effort by Cleveland to protect the sovereignty of Hawaii and sovereignty is 262 00:21:21.380 --> 00:21:25.700 important that's an important word it's important that we use that word because 263 00:21:25.700 --> 00:21:29.700 because sovereignty can be defined as supreme power. 264 00:21:29.700 --> 00:21:32.700 And as Brian said, how do you divide sovereignty? 265 00:21:32.700 --> 00:21:33.700 How do you divide supreme power? 266 00:21:33.700 --> 00:21:35.700 Calhoun said you can't do it. 267 00:21:35.700 --> 00:21:40.700 So, as he said, sovereignty, I think, still resides in Hawaii. 268 00:21:40.700 --> 00:21:42.700 In Texas, I think it resides in all the states. 269 00:21:42.700 --> 00:21:43.700 And I think it's something that we should use. 270 00:21:43.700 --> 00:21:44.700 I agree with Mark. 271 00:21:44.700 --> 00:21:45.700 We should use that. 272 00:21:45.700 --> 00:21:48.700 And I think this example of Cleveland in Hawaii, 273 00:21:48.700 --> 00:21:50.700 even though it's not necessarily technically about secession, 274 00:21:50.700 --> 00:21:53.700 I think it's a wonderful example we have of a president 275 00:21:53.700 --> 00:21:57.700 who actually believe in self-determination of peoples, and I thank you very much.