Hawai'i
After a coup overthrew Queen Lili'uokalani of Hawai'i in early 1893, the new government sought annexation to join the United States. President Benjamin Harrison was supportive and sent a treaty to the Senate. President Grover Cleveland, a Democrat like Blount, opposed annexation and sent Blount, now a private citizen, to investigate. The report he issued on July 17, 1893 is known as the Blount Report.
Blount recommended the rejection of annexation, and stated that the natives should be allowed to continue their Asiatic ways. When Blount blamed the U.S. consul for providing assistance for the overthrow, Cleveland proposed to use American military force to overthrow the new government by force and reinstall Liliuokalani as an absolute monarch. When the deposed Queen refused to grant amnesty as a condition of her reinstatement, she was accused of telling an American official she would "behead" the current government leaders and confiscate their property, Cleveland washed his hands of the matter by referring it to Congress.
The U.S. Senate, under Democratic control but angered at being shut out of a major foreign policy issue by Cleveland, then produced its own report, written by Senator John Tyler Morgan, a Democrat, and known as the Morgan Report. It completely contradicted Blount's findings and found the revolution in Hawaii was a completely internal affair. Following the Turpie Resolution of May 1894, which vowed a policy of non-interference in Hawaiian affairs, Cleveland dropped all talk of reinstating the Queen, and went on to officially recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the Republic of Hawaii. Other nations had already recognized the Republic. In 1898 the Republic again sought annexation, which with McKinley's strong support won Congressional approval.
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