402-405
| Previous Page | Next Page |
|
U.S. Flagship Mississippi,
Anton Lizardo, May 8, 1847.
Sir: I have received by Mr. Trist your confidential communication of the 15th instant, and in a personal interview with that gentleman have made the requisite arrangements for carrying out the wishes and intentions of the Department.
It is highly necessary that I should no longer delay a visit to the eastern coast as far as Laguna and Campeche. This I can do before any communication of interest can be received from Mr. Trist, and we both agree that it is better for me to make the visit now, that I may be at Vera Cruz about the time he shall have been informed of the result of his mission; but to prevent any inconvenience I shall leave a steamer at Vera Cruz to bring me any communication that Mr. Trist might transmit during my absence.
The Potomac will also be left at Vera Cruz.
With great respect, I am, sir, your most obedient servant,
M.C. Perry,
Commanding Home Squadron.
Hon. John Y. Mason,
Secretary of the Navy, Washington, D.C.
III. Also the following treaty of annexation made in the time of kamehameha iii, which failed of the king's signature by reason of his death, the original being on file in the office of the secretary of state.
[Confidential.]
Treaty of annexation concluded between His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands and the United States of America.
His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, being convinced that plans have been and still are on foot hostile to his sovereignty and to the peace of his Kingdom, which His Majesty is without power to resist and against which it is his imperative duty to provide in order to prevent the evils of anarchy and to secure the rights and prosperity of his subjects, and having, in conscientious regard thereto as well as to the general interests of his Kingdom, present and future, sought to incorporate his Kingdom into the Union of the United States as the means best calculated to attain these ends and perpetuate the blessings of freedom and equal rights to himself, his chiefs, and his people, and the Government of the United States, being actuated solely by the desire to add to their security and prosperity and to meet the wishes of His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands and of his Government, have determined to accomplish, by treaty, objects so important to their mutual and permanent welfare.
For that purpose His Majesty, Kamehameha III, King of the Hawaiian Islands, has granted full powers and instructions to Robert Chrichton Wyllie, esq., his minister of foreign relations, his secretary at war and of the navy, member of his privy council of state, member of the house of nobles, and chairman of the commissioners of his privy purse, and the President of the United States has invested with like powers David Lawrence Gregg, esq., commissioner ot said States to the said Kingdom; and the said plenipotentiaries, after exchanging their full powers, have agreed to and concluded the following articles:
|
Article I.
His Majesty, the King of the Hawaiian Islands, acting in conformity with the power vested in him by the constitution of his Kingdom, and with the wishes of his chiefs and people and of the heads of every department of his Government, cedes to the United States his Kingdom, with all its territories, to be held by them in full sovereignty, subject only to the same constitutional provisions as the other States of the American Union. This cession includes all public lots and squares, Government lands, mines and minerals, salt lakes and springs, fish ponds, public edifices, fortifications, barracks, forts, ports, and harbors, reefs, docks, and magazines, arms, armaments, and accouterments, public archives, and funds, claims, debts, taxes, and dues existing, available, and unpaid at the date of the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty.
Article II.
The Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands shall be incorporated into the American Union as a State enjoying the same degree of sovereignty as other States, and admitted as such, as soon as it can be done in consistency with the principles and requirements of the Federal Constitution, to all the rights, privileges, and immunities of a State as aforesaid, on a perfect equality with the other States of the Union.
Article III.
His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands, his chiefs and subjects of every class, shall continue in the enjoyment of all their existing personal and private rights, civil, political, and religious, to the utmost extent that is possible under the Federal Constitution, and shall possess and forever enjoy all the rights and privileges of citizens of the United States on terms of perfect equality, in all respects, with other American citizens.
Article IV.
The decisions of the Board of Land Commissioners, made and not appealed from at the date of the final ratification of this treaty, shall be and remain forever valid and undisturbed, and all titles to real estate, which are now or shall have then been declared valid under the laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom, shall be held to be equally valid by the United States, and measures shall be adopted by the United States for the speedy and final adjudication of all unsettled claims to land in conformity with the laws and usages under which they may have originated.
Article V.
All engagements of whatsoever kind, affecting the rights of corporations or individuals, validly construed and lawfully incumbent upon the King's Government or the Hawaiian nation to pay and discharge, shall be respected and fulfilled in as prompt, full, and complete a manner as they would have been respected and fulfilled had no change of sovereignty taken place.
Article VI.
The public lands hereby ceded, shall be subject to the laws regulating the public lands in other parts of the United States, liable, however,
|
to such alterations and changes as Congress may from time to time enact. The grants of land for the promotion of education heretofore made by the Government of the King of the Hawaiian Islands, shall be confirmed by the United States, which, in addition thereto, shall grant and set apart, for the purposes of common schools, seminaries of learning, and universities, so much of the public lands and of the proceeds thereof, as may be equal, proportionally, to the grants for such purposes in any of the States of the Union.
Article VII.
The laws of the Hawaiian Kingdom, so far as they are compatible with republican institutions, and conformable to the Constitution of the United States, shall be and remain in full force and effect until modified, changed, or repealed by the legislative authority of the State contemplated by this treaty.
Article VIII.
In consideration of the cession made by this treaty, and in compensation to all who may suffer or incur loss consequent thereon, the United States shall pay the aggregate sum of $300,000 as annuities, to the King, the Queen, the Crown Prince, those standing next in succession to the throne, the chiefs, and all other persons whom the King may wish to compensate or reward, to be apportioned as may be determined by His Majesty, the King, and his Privy Council of State, which amounts, to be apportioned as aforesaid, shall be paid ratably, without deduction or offset on any ground or in any shape whatever, to the parties severally named in such apportionment, at Honolulu on the 1st day of July of each successive year so long as they may live. It is, however, expressly agreed upon, that on the demise of his present majesty, the annuity of the immediate heir to the throne shall then be increased to the same amount before allowed and paid to the King himself.
As a further consideration for the cession herein made and in order to place within the reach of the inhabitants of the Hawaiian Islands the means of education, present and future, so as to enable them the more perfectly to enjoy and discharge the rights and duties consequent upon a change from monarchical to republican institutions, the United States agrees to set apart and pay over for the term of ten years the sum of $75,000 per annum, one-third of which shall be applied to constitute the principal of a fund for the benefit of a college or university, or colleges or universities, as the case may be, and the balance for the support of common schools, to be invested, secured, or applied as may be determined by the legislative authority of the Hawaiian Islands when admitted as a state into the Union as aforesaid.
Article IX.
Immediately after the exchange of the ratifications of this treaty the President of the United States shall appoint a commissioner who shall receive in due form, in the name of the United States, the transfer of the sovereignty and territories of the Hawaiian Islands, also all public property, archives, and other things hereinbefore stipulated to be conveyed, and who shall exercise all executive authority in said islands necessary to the preservation of peace and order and to the proper
|
execution of the laws until the state contemplated in this treaty can be duly organized and admitted as such state; and until the arrival of such commissioner all departments of His Majesty's Government shall continue as now constituted.
Article X.
This treaty shall be ratified by the respective high contracting parties and the ratifications exchanged at the city of Honolulu within eight months from the date hereof, or sooner if possible; but it is agreed that this period may be extended by mutual consent of the two parties.
In witness whereof we, the undersigned, plenipotentiaries of His Majesty the King of the Hawaiian Islands and of the United States of America, have signed three originals of this treaty of annexation in Hawaiian and three in English, and have thereunto affixed our respective official seals.
Done at Honolulu, this ---- day of ----, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and fifty-four.
SEPARATE AND SECRET ARTICLE.
Whereas it is desirable to guard against the exigencies declared in the preamble to the foregoing treaty, and to secure the King of the Hawaiian Islands, his chiefs and all who reside under his jurisdiction, from the dangers therein referred to and expressed, it is hereby provided and expressly agreed that at any time before the final exchange of the ratifications of said treaty, if the same shall be duly ratified on the part of His Majesty the King, and satisfactory notice thereof given to the commissioner of the United States, it shall be competent for His Majesty, by proclamation, to declare his islands annexed to the American Union, subject to the provisions of such treaty as negotiated, and the commissioners of the United States for the time being shall receive and accept the transfer of the jurisdiction of the said islands, in the name of the United States, and protect and defend them by the armed forces of the United States as a part of the American Union, holding the same for and in behalf of his Government, and exercising the jurisdiction provided for in said treaty, with the understanding, however, that in case the said treaty is not finally ratified, or other arrangement made, by the free consent and to the mutual satisfaction of the contracting parties, the sovereignty of the islands shall immediately revert, without prejudice, to His Majesty, or his immediate heirs in the same condition as before the transfer thereof; and it is further understood and agreed that this article shall be as binding for all the ends and purposes herein expressed as if it formed a part of the foregoing treaty.
IV. Also the following instructions from hon. w. l. marcy, secretary of war, to maj. gen. winfield scott, commanding the army of the united states in mexico.
War Department,
Washington, D. C, January 18, 1894.
Sir: As requested in your letter of the 13th instant, I have the honor to transmit herewith a copy of a confidential letter, dated April 14,1847, addressed by the Secretary of War to Maj. Gen. Winfield
| Previous Page | Next Page |