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Partly-printed DS as president, one page, 8 x 9.75, April 4, 1854. President Pierce authorizes and directs the Secretary of State to affix the Seal of the United States to “a Full Power to David L. Gregg, esq’r, to negotiate a treaty between the United States and the Hawaiian Kingdom.” Crisply and prominently signed at the conclusion in ink by President Franklin Pierce. In fine condition, with a few small stains at the top.
David Lawrence Gregg (1819–1868) was a U.S. senator from New York who, in 1853, was appointed by President Pierce as the commissioner to the Kingdom of Hawaii to negotiate its annexation. The meeting was requested by King Kamehameha III, who began to view annexation to the U.S. as a possible way to protect the kingdom’s independence from European colonization. Although negotiations were ongoing and serious, Kamehameha III died on December 15, 1854, before any agreement could be finalized or signed, and his successor, Kamehameha IV, shut down annexation talks completely. The idea of annexation was shelved for several decades, until the U.S. finally annexed Hawaii in 1898, following the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and the establishment of the Republic of Hawaii.
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