John Leavitt Stevens (August 1, 1820 – February 8, 1895) was the United States Minister to the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 when he conspired to overthrow Queen Liliuokalani in association with the Committee of Safety, led by Lorrin A. Thurston and Sanford B. Dole – the first Americans attempting to overthrow a foreign government under the auspices of a United States government officer.

[5] Stevens attended Maine Wesleyan Seminary to prepare for a minister's career in the Universalist church, which he served as pastor for a decade, becoming a leader in the anti-slavery movement.

[6] After a decade as an activist Universalist minister, Stevens was persuaded by his lifelong friend Maine Governor Anson P. Morrill to give up the pulpit and become a newspaper publisher and politician.

Stevens took his friend Morrill's advice, left the ministry and became a newspaper editor and publisher before becoming a Maine delegate to the 1860 Republican National Convention.

[10] When Stevens was named to the Hawaiian post, his title was changed to Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary, indicating his rise within the State Department.

In 1881, James G. Blaine had written of the necessity of "drawing the ties of intimate relationship between us and the Hawaiian Islands so as to make them practically a part of the American system without derogation of their absolute independence.

"So long as the islands retain their own independent government there remains the possibility that England or the Canadian Dominion might secure one of the Hawaiian harbors for a coaling station."

"[16] The Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe, and this is the golden hour for the United States to pluck it.The question had taken on significance after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1886.

[15] For aggressive Manifest Destiny advocates like Stevens, the telegraphing of English intentions – even by diplomatic innuendo – signaled the need for a preemptive American response.

In July 1889, there was a small scale rebellion, and Minister Merrill landed Marines to protect Americans; the State Department explicitly approved his action.

[26] The Blount Report commissioned by President Grover Cleveland was submitted on July 17, 1893, and found Stevens guilty of inappropriate conduct in support of the conspiracy to overthrow Hawaii's Queen.

[30] During his life, Stevens authored several other books, including a two-volume biography [31] of Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus and his involvement in the Thirty Years War,[32] praised by The New York Times as showing "extensive research and much patient reading.

"[33] The prolific Stevens also authored assorted letters, speeches and tracts, many of them advocating his Manifest Destiny views on American foreign policy.

[38] The couple had one son and three daughters, one of whom drowned on January 20, 1893 – three days after the Hawaiian overthrow Stevens helped engineer – and an event said to have sent the diplomat into crippling depression.

[39] A one-act play entitled "Cry for the Gods" was written by Judge Paul Handy which presents a dramatized, fictional meeting between Stevens and the Queen on the night of January 16, 1893.