Delaware gazette and state journal. (Wilmington, Del.) 1883-1902, 1893-11-30
ware rHEFLAG!
whoop Ter Up. aud Let Loose the Dogs--
The Administration Has Committed an
Act of War.


The Administration Has Committed an
Act of War.
New York Tribune, Nov. 81 ...
No matter how the scheme to unseat
the government of Hawaii and to create
there another government may be ex-
pressed, the first act that gives il mean
ing is an act of war. Mr.. Cleveland
cannot lift his finger to iniure President
Dole or to upraiso the beSotted and
broken throne Of Liiuukalani without
assuming powers which the Constitution
expressly forbade to the President and
reserved TO the people themselves
through their Congress. This is the
highest power of the nation, the very
soul of sovereignty, and its usurpation
by any man must be resisted resolutely
II the American Minister at Honolulu
contents himself with representing to
President Dole the view of Mr.. Cleye-
land, he and the authority he speaks
for are within their rights, and it will
be for Mr.. Dele 10 consider whether he
pleases to receive that sort of message
or to send its bearer home. But if Mr..
Willis goes one step further, if he does
| anything that intllcts blow upon the
government to which he is accredited,
it is an act of war, and it will raise a
question here that will eclipse all others.
II is the worst of this business that
Mr.. Cleveland has precipitated upon the
people controversy SO needless, so
utterly without justification or sense.
The Hawaiian matter was not his bust
ness, anyhow, and in touching il at all
he violated one Of the most necessary
traditions of our governmental SYSTEM
that an act of one Executive is binding
on another and should not be reversed.
In reversing it, as he did, he played
havoc with commercial interests and
public rights which every one of his
predecessors for seventy years had made
| IL a prime duty to guard as of the
highest value. But even this has not
| satisfied him. To withdraw the treaty,
TO prevent annexation, was not enough.
He must needs make the free-will offer
ing OF the citizens of Hawaii the excuse
TO affront and then to crush them.
Every instinct OF honor, not to speak
of gratitude and sympathy, denounces
the Presidents policy as out of all har-
mony with public sentiment. These men
in Hawaii are Americans, blood of our
blood, bone of our bone, flesh of our
flesh. The work they have done is the
work of Christians, of noble pioneers
| for civilizations and human progress.
Tho throne they tore down was fit for
nothing else, and the fact that it had to
come down at some time has been the
condition of its existence for 20 years.
| Who has been hurt, who robbed, by its
destruction2 Are we setting up for be.
levers in the divine right of kings ?
/ What rffrht Had thut s..
crown except such as the people chose
to give herr And what is the test of a
popular act of revolution except its
success and the orderly process of ad.
ministration under the new conditions
it created.
The announcement of purpose on
MIR. Cleveland's part to go in there with
American force, whether physical OF
moral, to rob these people of the liberties
their gallantry won and is holding, %
beat down the government they have
established and are so ably conducting
and to hand them over to the arbitrary
rule of semi barbarous Queen, arouses
the resentment of everything that is
American in the heart and conscience
of our people! 1t is an unpatriotit
scheme, and he may make up his mine
that the more it is thought of and talked
about the more odious it will become
and the less tolerable will seem any ac
Of his which goes by the breadth of {
hair beyond his strict constitutional
authority. That act will be committed
when an American soldier lands or
Hawaiian soil against the protest of the
Hawaiian government. 1t will be al
act,ot war, an act to which he has nc
power to commit the American nation
and an act for which he will have tt
answer.