Albert S. Willis
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Albert Shelby Willis (January 22, 1843 - January 6, 1897) was a United States Representative from Kentucky and a Minister to Hawai‘i.
Born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, Willis attended the common schools, and graduated from the Louisville Male High School in 1860. He taught school for four years before graduating from the Louisville Law School in 1866. He was admitted to the bar and commenced the practice of law in Louisville. He served as prosecuting attorney for Jefferson County from 1874 to 1877.
Willis was elected as a Democrat to the Forty-fifth and to the four succeeding Congresses (March 4, 1877-March 3, 1887). He served as chairman of the Committee on Rivers and Harbors during the Forty-eighth and Forty-ninth Congresses. He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1886.
He resumed the practice of law before being appointed Minister to Hawai‘i by President Grover Cleveland in 1893. Willis was sent to Hawai‘i on a secret mission to meet with Queen Lili‘uokalani and obtain a promise of amnesty for those involved in the overthrow of the monarchy if Cleveland restored her to the throne. Originally unsuccessful in securing such a promise in November 1893, when the queen changed her mind on December 18, 1893, Willis demanded on behalf of Cleveland to dissolve the Provisional Government of Hawai‘i. Willis' mission was deemed a failure when Sanford B. Dole sent a written reply declining the surrender of his authority to the deposed queen. President Cleveland then referred the matter to Congress, which commissioned the Morgan Report, which exonerated the U.S. minister and peacekeepers from taking any part in the Hawaiian Revolution. Following the Morgan Report, Cleveland reversed his stance, rebuffed the queen's further pleas for interference, and maintained normal diplomatic relations with both the Provisional Government and the Republic of Hawaii.[citation needed]
Willis served as Minister to Hawai‘i until his death in Honolulu on January 6, 1897. He was interred in Cave Hill Cemetery, Louisville, Kentucky.
