Editing Grover Cleveland (section)

===Foreign policy, 1893–1897===
{{further|Blount Report|Morgan Report|Venezuelan crisis of 1895}}
{| class="toccolours" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 0em; font-size: 85%; background:#c6dbf7; color:black; width:30em; max-width: 40%;" cellspacing="5"
| style="text-align: left;" |"I suppose that right and justice should determine the path to be followed in treating this subject. If national honesty is to be disregarded and a desire for territorial expansion or dissatisfaction with a form of government not our own ought to regulate our conduct, I have entirely misapprehended the mission and character of our government and the behavior which the conscience of the people demands of their public servants."
|-
| style="text-align: right;" | '''''Cleveland's message to Congress on the Hawaiian question''', December 18, 1893''.<ref name="nevins560">Nevins, 560</ref>
|}
[[File:His Little Hawaiian Game Checkmated political cartoon 1894 (retouched).jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|''His Little Hawaiian Game Checkmated'', from ''[[Judge (magazine)|Judge]]'', 1894]]
When Cleveland took office, he faced the question of Hawaiian annexation. In his first term, he had supported free trade with the [[Hawaiian Kingdom]] and accepted an amendment that gave the United States a coaling and naval station in [[Pearl Harbor]].<ref name="wealth" /> A treaty of peace and friendship existed between the United States and Hawai'i.<ref name=":4" /> In the intervening four years, however, Honolulu businessmen of European and American ancestry had denounced Queen [[Liliuokalani]] as a tyrant who rejected constitutional government. In January 1893 they [[Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom|overthrew her]], set up a [[Provisional Government of Hawaii|provisional government]] under [[Sanford B. Dole]], and sought to join the United States.<ref name="nevins549">Nevins, 549–552; Graff 121–122</ref>

The Harrison administration had quickly agreed with representatives of the new government on a treaty of annexation and submitted it to the Senate for approval.<ref name="nevins549" /> However, the presence in Honolulu of [[U.S. marines|U.S. Marines]] from the [[USS Boston (1884)|USS ''Boston'']] while the coup unfolded, deployed at the request of U.S. Minister to Hawaii [[John L. Stevens]], caused serious controversy.<ref name=":5" /><ref>{{cite book |last1=Kinzer |first1=Stephen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Q3o2BaNiJksC&q=%22john+l.+stevens%22&pg=PA9 |title=Overthrow |date=April 4, 2006 |publisher=[[Henry Holt and Company]] |isbn=9780805078619 |location=New York |pages=30 |access-date=August 31, 2015}}</ref> Five days after taking office on March 9, 1893, Cleveland withdrew the treaty from the Senate and sent former Congressman [[James Henderson Blount]] to Hawai'i to investigate the situation.<ref name="blount">Nevins, 552–554; Graff, 122</ref>

Cleveland agreed with [[Blount Report|Blount's report]], which found the [[native Hawaiians]] to be opposed to annexation;<ref name="blount" /> the report also found U.S. diplomatic and military involvement in the coup.<ref name=":4" /> It included over a thousand pages of documents.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Foreign Relations of the United States, 1894. Appendix 2: Affairs in Hawaii. |date=January 1895 |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/2021666777/ |access-date=May 19, 2023 |publisher=[[Library of Congress]] }}</ref> A firm [[American Anti-Imperialist League|anti-imperialist]],<ref name=":3" /> Cleveland opposed American actions in Hawaii and called for the queen to be restored; he disapproved of the new provisional government under Dole.<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /> But matters stalled when Liliuokalani initially refused to grant amnesty as a condition for regaining her throne, saying she would either execute or banish the new leadership in Honolulu. Dole's government was in full control and rejected her demands.<ref name="nevins558">Nevins, 558–559</ref> By December 1893, the matter was still unresolved, and Cleveland referred the issue to Congress.<ref name="nevins558" /> Cleveland delivered a message to Congress dated December 18, 1893, rejecting annexation and encouraging Congress to continue the American tradition of nonintervention (see excerpt at right).<ref name="nevins560" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Cleveland |first=Grover |title=President's message relating to the Hawaiian Islands. December 18, 1893. |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/06039135/ |access-date=May 2, 2024 |publisher=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Cleveland |first=Grover |date=December 18, 1893 |title=President's message relating to the Hawaiian Islands. |url=https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1894app2/ch7 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230601231400/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1894app2/ch7 |archive-date=June 1, 2023 |website=[[Office of the Historian]], [[U.S. Department of State]]}}</ref> He expressed himself in forceful terms, saying the presence of U.S. forces near the Hawaiian [[Aliʻiōlani Hale|government building]] and [[ʻIolani Palace|royal palace]] during the coup was a "substantial wrong" and an "act of war," and lambasted the actions of minister [[John L. Stevens|Stevens]].<ref name=":4" /><ref name=":5" /> Cleveland described the incident as the "subversion of the constitutional Government of Hawaii," and argued "it has been the settled policy of the United States to concede to people of foreign countries the same freedom and independence in the management of their domestic affairs that we have always claimed for ourselves."<ref name=":5" />

The [[United States House of Representatives|House of Representatives]] adopted a resolution against annexation and voted to censure the U.S. minister.<ref name=":5" /> However the Senate, under Democratic control but opposed to Cleveland, commissioned and produced the [[Morgan Report]], which contradicted Blount's findings and found the overthrow was a completely internal affair.<ref>Welch, 174</ref> Senator [[John Tyler Morgan]] of Alabama, chairman of the [[United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations|U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations]], oversaw the report. It declared that the "action of the Queen in an effort to overturn the constitution of 1887...amounted to an act of abdication on her part."<ref name=":6">{{Cite web |title=The Morgan Report, pp. 363–398 |url=https://morganreport.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=363-398 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231212202248/https://morganreport.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=363-398 |archive-date=December 12, 2023 |access-date=May 18, 2023 |website=morganreport.org}}</ref> The "constitution of 1887" mentioned in the report was the so-called [[1887 Constitution of the Hawaiian Kingdom|Bayonet Constitution]], which King [[Kalākaua|Kalakaua]] had signed under pressure that year.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Wong |first1=Helen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sY8iLDyCltMC |title=Hawaii's Royal History |last2=Rayson |first2=Ann |publisher=Bess Press |year=1987 |isbn=978-0-935848-48-9 |page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=sY8iLDyCltMC&pg=PA196 196]}}</ref> The Morgan Report said that the troops landed on Oahu from the USS ''Boston'' gave "no demonstration of actual hostilities," and described their conduct as "quiet" and "respectful."<ref name=":6" /> The United States already had a presence in the region, and acquired exclusive rights to enter and establish a naval base at [[Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard|Pearl Harbor]] in 1887, when the [[Reciprocity Treaty of 1875]] was renewed during Cleveland's first term.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Reciprocity Treaty of 1875 {{!}} Hawaii-United States {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/event/Reciprocity-Treaty-of-1875 |access-date=May 18, 2023 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> Cleveland dropped his push to restore the queen, and went on to recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the new [[Republic of Hawaii]] under President Dole, who took office in July 1894.<ref>McWilliams, 25–36</ref>

Closer to home, Cleveland adopted a broad interpretation of the [[Monroe Doctrine]] that not only prohibited new European colonies, but also declared an American national interest in any matter of substance within the hemisphere.<ref>Fareed Zakaria, ''From wealth to power: The unusual origins of America's world role'' (Princeton University Press, 1999) pp.  145–146</ref> When Britain and [[Venezuelan crisis of 1895|Venezuela]] disagreed over the boundary between Venezuela and the colony of [[British Guiana]], Cleveland and Secretary of State [[Richard Olney]] protested.<ref>Graff, 123–125; Nevins, 633–642</ref> British Prime Minister [[Robert Cecil, 3rd Marquess of Salisbury|Lord Salisbury]] and the British ambassador to Washington, [[Julian Pauncefote, 1st Baron Pauncefote|Julian Pauncefote]], misjudged how important the dispute was to Washington, and to the anti-British Irish Catholic element in Cleveland's Democratic Party. They prolonged the crisis before accepting the American demand for arbitration.<ref>Paul Gibb, "Unmasterly Inactivity? Sir Julian Pauncefote, Lord Salisbury, and the Venezuela Boundary Dispute", ''Diplomacy & Statecraft'', Mar 2005, Vol. 16 Issue 1, pp. 23–55</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 1841667|title = Background of Cleveland's Venezuelan Policy|journal = The American Historical Review|volume = 47|issue = 2|pages = 259–277|last1 = Blake|first1 = Nelson M.|year = 1942|doi = 10.2307/1841667}}</ref> An international tribunal in 1899 awarded the bulk of the disputed territory to British Guiana.<ref>Graff, 123–125</ref> But by standing with a Latin American nation against the encroachment of a colonial power, Cleveland improved relations with Latin America. The cordial manner in which the arbitration was conducted also strengthened relations with Britain and encouraged the major powers to consider [[arbitration]] as a way to settle their disputes.<ref>Nevins, 550, 633–648</ref>