yielded her authority to prevent collision of armed forces and loss of
life, and only until such time as the United States, upon the facts
being presented to it, should undo the action of its representative and
reinstate her in the authority she claimed as the constitutional
sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands.

This protest was delivered to the chief of the Provisional Government,
who indorsed thereon his acknowledgment of its receipt. The terms of the
protest were read without dissent by those assuming to constitute the
Provisional Government, who were certainly charged with the knowledge
that the Queen, instead of finally abandoning her power, had appealed to
the justice of the United States for reinstatement in her authority; and
yet the Provisional Government, with this unanswered protest in its
hand, hastened to negotiate with the United States for the permanent
banishment of the Queen from power and for a sale of her Kingdom.

Our country was in danger of occupying the position of having actually
set up a temporary government on foreign soil for the purpose of
acquiring through that agency territory which we had wrongfully put in
its possession. The control of both sides of a bargain acquired in such
a manner is called by a familiar and unpleasant name when found in
private transactions. We are not without a precedent showing how
scrupulously we avoided such accusations in former days. After the
people of Texas had declared their independence of Mexico they resolved
that on the acknowledgment of their independence by the United States
they would seek admission into the Union. Several months after the
battle of San Jacinto, by which Texan independence was practically
assured and established, President Jackson declined to recognize it,
alleging as one of his reasons that in the circumstances it became us
"to beware of a too early movement, as it might subject us, however