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Grover Cleveland

April 30, 2023

"President Cleveland" redirects here. For ships named after him, see SS President Cleveland.

Stephen Grover Cleveland (March 18, 1837 – June 24, 1908) was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in U.S. history to serve non-consecutive presidential terms.[b] He won the popular vote in three presidential elections—1884, 1888, and 1892—though Benjamin Harrison won the electoral college vote and thus the presidency in 1888. Cleveland was one of two Democrats elected president (followed by Woodrow Wilson in 1912) in an era when Republicans dominated the presidency between 1861 to 1933.

Grover Cleveland
Cleveland c. 1892
22nd & 24th President of the United States
In office
March 4, 1893 – March 4, 1897
Vice PresidentAdlai Stevenson
Preceded byBenjamin Harrison
Succeeded byWilliam McKinley
In office
March 4, 1885 – March 4, 1889
Vice President
Preceded byChester A. Arthur
Succeeded byBenjamin Harrison
28th Governor of New York
In office
January 1, 1883 – January 6, 1885
LieutenantDavid B. Hill
Preceded byAlonzo B. Cornell
Succeeded byDavid B. Hill
35th Mayor of Buffalo
In office
January 2, 1882 – November 20, 1882
Preceded byAlexander Brush
Succeeded byMarcus M. Drake
17th Sheriff of Erie County
In office
January 1, 1871 – December 31, 1873
Preceded byCharles Darcy
Succeeded byJohn B. Weber
Personal details
Born
Stephen Grover Cleveland

(1837-03-18)March 18, 1837
Caldwell, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedJune 24, 1908(1908-06-24) (aged 71)
Princeton, New Jersey, U.S.
Resting placePrinceton Cemetery
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
​
(m. 1886)​
Children6, including Ruth, Esther, Richard, and Francis
Parents
Relatives
Occupation
  • Politician
  • lawyer
Signature
Alleged recording of Grover Cleveland
During his 1892 election campaign. The authenticity is in doubt and the recording has also been attributed towards William Jennings Bryan's Cross of Gold speech.
Recorded 1892 (if authentic)

In 1881, Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo, and in 1882, he was elected governor of New York. He was the leader of the pro-business Bourbon Democrats who opposed high tariffs, free silver, inflation, imperialism, and subsidies to business, farmers, or veterans. His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the era.[1] Cleveland won praise for his honesty, self-reliance, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism.[2] He fought political corruption, patronage, and bossism. As a reformer, his prestige led many like-minded Republicans, called "Mugwumps", to bolt from the Republican Party's presidential ticket and swing their support to Cleveland during the 1884 election. Fifteen months into his first presidential term, he married Frances Folsom on June 2, 1886.[3] As his second administration began, disaster hit the nation when the Panic of 1893 produced a severe national depression. It ruined his Democratic Party, opening the way for a Republican landslide in 1894 and for the agrarian and silverite seizure of the Democratic Party in 1896. The result was a political realignment that ended the Third Party System and launched the Fourth Party System and the Progressive Era.[4]

Cleveland was a formidable policymaker, and he also drew corresponding criticism. His intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 to keep the railroads moving angered labor unions nationwide in addition to the party in Illinois; his support of the gold standard and opposition to free silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democratic Party.[5] Critics complained that Cleveland had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters—depressions and strikes—in his second term.[5] Even so, his reputation for probity and good character survived the troubles of his second term. Biographer Allan Nevins wrote, "[I]n Grover Cleveland, the greatness lies in typical rather than unusual qualities. He had no endowments that thousands of men do not have. He possessed honesty, courage, firmness, independence, and common sense. But he possessed them to a degree other men do not."[6] By the end of his second term, public perception showed him to be one of the most unpopular U.S. presidents, and he was by then rejected even by most Democrats.[7] Today, Cleveland is considered by most historians to have been a successful leader, and has been praised for honesty, integrity, adherence to his morals, defying party boundaries, and effective leadership.

Early life

Childhood and family history

 
Caldwell Presbyterian parsonage, birthplace of Grover Cleveland in Caldwell, New Jersey

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New Jersey, to Ann (née Neal) and Richard Falley Cleveland.[8] Cleveland's father was a Congregational and Presbyterian minister who was originally from Connecticut.[9] His mother was from Baltimore and was the daughter of a bookseller.[10] On his father's side, Cleveland was descended from English ancestors, the first of the family having emigrated to Massachusetts from Cleveland, England, in 1635.[11] His father's maternal grandfather, Richard Falley Jr., fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill, and was the son of an immigrant from Guernsey. On his mother's side, Cleveland was descended from Anglo-Irish Protestants and German Quakers from Philadelphia.[12] Cleveland was distantly related to General Moses Cleaveland, after whom the city of Cleveland, Ohio, was named.[13]

Cleveland, the fifth of nine children, was named Stephen Grover in honor of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell, where his father was pastor at the time. He became known as Grover in his adult life.[14] In 1841, the Cleveland family moved to Fayetteville, New York, where Grover spent much of his childhood.[15] Neighbors later described him as "full of fun and inclined to play pranks",[16] and fond of outdoor sports.[17]

In 1850, Cleveland's father Richard moved his family to Clinton, New York, accepting a job there as district secretary for the American Home Missionary Society.[18] Despite his father's dedication to his missionary work, his income was insufficient for the large family. Financial conditions forced him to remove Grover from school and place him in a two-year mercantile apprenticeship in Fayetteville. The experience was valuable and brief, and the living conditions quite austere. Grover returned to Clinton and his schooling at the completion of the apprentice contract.[19] In 1853, missionary work began to take a toll on Richard's health. He took a new work assignment in Holland Patent, New York (near Utica), and moved his family once again.[20] Shortly after, Richard Cleveland died from a gastric ulcer. Grover was said to have learned about his father's death from a boy selling newspapers.[20]

Education and moving west

 
An early, undated photograph of Grover Cleveland

Cleveland received his elementary education at the Fayetteville Academy and the Clinton Liberal Academy.[21] After his father died in 1853, he again left school to help support his family. Later that year, Cleveland's brother William was hired as a teacher at the New York Institute for the Blind in New York City, and William obtained a place for Cleveland as an assistant teacher. Cleveland returned home to Holland Patent at the end of 1854, where an elder in his church offered to pay for his college education if he would promise to become a minister. Cleveland declined, and in 1855 he decided to move west.[22]

He stopped first in Buffalo, New York, where his uncle-in-law Lewis F. Allen, gave him a clerical job.[23] Allen was an important man in Buffalo, and he introduced his nephew-in-law to influential men there, including the partners in the law firm of Rogers, Bowen, and Rogers.[24] Millard Fillmore, the 13th president of the United States, had previously worked for the partnership.[25] Cleveland later took a clerkship with the firm, began to read the law with them, and was admitted to the New York bar in 1859.[26]

Early career and the Civil War

Cleveland worked for the Rogers firm for three years before leaving in 1862 to start his own practice.[27] In January 1863, he was appointed assistant district attorney of Erie County.[28] With the American Civil War raging, Congress passed the Conscription Act of 1863, requiring able-bodied men to serve in the army if called upon, or else to hire a substitute.[26] Cleveland chose the latter course, paying $150 (equivalent to $3,301 in 2021) to George Benninsky, a thirty-two-year-old Polish immigrant, to serve in his place.[29] Benninsky survived the war.[26]

As a lawyer, Cleveland became known for his single-minded concentration and dedication to hard work.[30] In 1866, he successfully defended some participants in the Fenian raid, working on a pro bono basis (free of charge).[31] In 1868, Cleveland attracted professional attention for his winning defense of a libel suit against the editor of Buffalo's Commercial Advertiser.[32] During this time, Cleveland assumed a lifestyle of simplicity, taking residence in a plain boarding house. He devoted his growing income instead to the support of his mother and younger sisters.[33] While his personal quarters were austere, Cleveland enjoyed an active social life and "the easy-going sociability of hotel-lobbies and saloons".[34] He shunned the circles of higher society of Buffalo in which his uncle-in-law's family traveled.[35]

Political career in New York

Sheriff of Erie County

 
Statue of Grover Cleveland outside City Hall in Buffalo, New York

From his earliest involvement in politics, Cleveland aligned with the Democratic Party.[36] He had a decided aversion to Republicans John Fremont and Abraham Lincoln, and the heads of the Rogers law firm were solid Democrats.[37] In 1865, he ran for District Attorney, losing narrowly to his friend and roommate, Lyman K. Bass, the Republican nominee.[30]

In 1870, with the help of friend Oscar Folsom, Cleveland secured the Democratic nomination for sheriff of Erie County, New York.[38] He won the election by a 303-vote margin and took office on January 1, 1871, at age 33.[39][40] While this new career took him away from the practice of law, it was rewarding in other ways: the fees were said to yield up to $40,000 (equivalent to $904,778 in 2021) over the two-year term.[38]

Cleveland's service as sheriff was unremarkable; biographer Rexford Tugwell described the time in office as a waste for Cleveland politically. Cleveland was aware of graft in the sheriff's office during his tenure and chose not to confront it.[41] A notable incident of his term took place on September 6, 1872, when Patrick Morrissey was executed. He had been convicted of murdering his mother.[42] As sheriff, Cleveland was responsible for either personally carrying out the execution or paying a deputy $10 to perform the task.[42] In spite of reservations about the hanging, Cleveland executed Morrissey himself.[42] He hanged another murderer, John Gaffney, on February 14, 1873.[43]

After his term as sheriff ended, Cleveland returned to his law practice, opening a firm with his friends Lyman K. Bass and Wilson S. Bissell.[44] Elected to Congress in 1872, Bass did not spend much time at the firm, but Cleveland and Bissell soon rose to the top of Buffalo's legal community.[45] Up to that point, Cleveland's political career had been honorable and unexceptional. As biographer Allan Nevins wrote, "Probably no man in the country, on March 4, 1881, had less thought than this limited, simple, sturdy attorney of Buffalo that four years later he would be standing in Washington and taking the oath as President of the United States."[46]

It was during this period that Cleveland began courting a widow, Maria Halpin. She later accused him of raping her.[47][48][49] It is unclear if Halpin was actually raped by Cleveland as some early reports stated or if their relationship was consensual.[50] In March 1876, Cleveland accused Halpin of being an alcoholic and had the child removed from her custody. The child was taken to the Protestant Orphan Asylum, and Cleveland paid for his stay there.[50] Cleveland also had Halpin admitted to the Providence Asylum. However Halpin was only kept at the asylum for five days because she was deemed to not be insane.[50][51] Cleveland later provided financial support for her to begin her own business outside of Buffalo.[50] Although lacking irrefutable evidence that Cleveland was the father,[52] the illegitimate child became a campaign issue for the Republican Party in Cleveland's first presidential campaign, where they smeared him by claiming that he was "immoral" and for allegedly acting cruelly by not raising the child himself.[52][53]

Mayor of Buffalo

In the 1870s, the municipal government in Buffalo had grown increasingly corrupt, with Democratic and Republican political machines cooperating to share the spoils of political office.[54] When the Republicans nominated a slate of particularly disreputable machine politicians for the 1881 election, Democrats saw an opportunity to gain the votes of disaffected Republicans by nominating a more honest candidate.[55] Party leaders approached Cleveland, who agreed to run for Mayor of Buffalo provided the party's slate of candidates for other offices was to his liking.[56] More notorious politicians were left off the Democratic ticket and he accepted the nomination.[56] Cleveland was elected mayor that November with 15,120 votes, while his Republican opponent Milton Earl Beebe received 11,528 votes.[57] He took office on January 2, 1882.[58]

Cleveland's term as mayor was spent fighting the entrenched interests of the party machines.[59] Among the acts that established his reputation was a veto of the street-cleaning bill passed by the Common Council.[60] The street-cleaning contract had been competed for bidding, and the Council selected the highest bidder at $422,000, rather than the lowest of $100,000 less, because of the political connections of the bidder.[60] While this sort of bipartisan graft had previously been tolerated in Buffalo, Mayor Cleveland would have none of it. His veto message said, "I regard it as the culmination of a most bare-faced, impudent, and shameless scheme to betray the interests of the people, and to worse than squander the public money."[61] The Council reversed itself and awarded the contract to the lowest bidder.[62] Cleveland also asked the state legislature to form a Commission to develop a plan to improve the sewer system in Buffalo at a much lower cost than previously proposed locally; this plan was successfully adopted.[63] For this, and other actions safeguarding public funds, Cleveland began to gain a reputation beyond Erie County as a leader willing to purge government corruption.[64]

Governor of New York

 
Gubernatorial portrait of Grover Cleveland

New York Democratic party officials began to consider Cleveland a possible nominee for governor.[65] Daniel Manning, a party insider who admired Cleveland's record, was instrumental in his candidacy.[66] With a split in the state Republican party in 1882, the Democratic party was considered to be at an advantage; several men contended for that party's nomination.[65] The two leading Democratic candidates were Roswell P. Flower and Henry W. Slocum. Their factions deadlocked, and the convention could not agree on a nominee.[67] Cleveland, in third place on the first ballot, picked up support in subsequent votes and emerged as the compromise choice.[68] The Republican party remained divided, and in the general election Cleveland emerged the victor, with 535,318 votes to Republican nominee Charles J. Folger's 342,464.[69] Cleveland's margin of victory was, at the time, the largest in a contested New York election; the Democrats also picked up seats in both houses of the New York State Legislature.[70]

Cleveland brought his opposition to needless spending to the governor's office; he promptly sent the legislature eight vetoes in his first two months in office.[71] The first to attract attention was his veto of a bill to reduce the fares on New York City elevated trains to five cents.[72] The bill had broad support because the trains' owner, Jay Gould, was unpopular, and his fare increases were widely denounced.[73] Cleveland, however, saw the bill as unjust—Gould had taken over the railroads when they were failing and had made the system solvent again.[74] Moreover, Cleveland believed that altering Gould's franchise would violate the Contract Clause of the federal Constitution.[74] Despite the initial popularity of the fare-reduction bill, the newspapers praised Cleveland's veto.[74] Theodore Roosevelt, then a member of the Assembly, had reluctantly voted for the bill with the intention of holding railroad barons accountable.[75] After the veto, Roosevelt and other legislators reversed their position, and Cleveland's veto was sustained.[75]

Cleveland's defiance of political corruption won him popular acclaim. Yet it also brought the enmity of New York City's influential Tammany Hall organization and its boss, John Kelly.[76] Tammany Hall and Kelly had disapproved of Cleveland's nomination for governor, and their resistance intensified after Cleveland openly opposed and prevented the re-election of Thomas F. Grady, their point man in the State Senate.[77] Cleveland also steadfastly opposed other Tammany nominees, as well as bills passed as a result of their deal-making.[78] The loss of Tammany's support was offset by the support of Theodore Roosevelt and other reform-minded Republicans, who helped Cleveland pass several laws to reform municipal governments.[79]

Election of 1884

Main articles: 1884 United States presidential election and Grover Cleveland 1884 presidential campaign

Nomination for president

Main article: 1884 Democratic National Convention
 
An anti-Blaine cartoon presents him as the "tattooed man", with many indelible scandals.
 
An anti-Cleveland cartoon highlights the Halpin scandal.

In June 1884, the Republican Party convened their nomination convention in Chicago, selecting former U.S House Speaker James G. Blaine of Maine as their nominee for president. Blaine's nomination alienated many Republicans who viewed Blaine as ambitious and immoral.[80] The Republican standard-bearer was weakened by alienating the Mugwumps, and the Conkling faction, recently disenfranchised by President Chester Arthur.[81] Democratic party leaders believed the Republicans' choice gave them an opportunity to win the White House for the first time since 1856 if the right candidate could be found.[80]

Among the Democrats, Samuel J. Tilden was the initial front-runner, having been the party's nominee in the contested election of 1876.[82] After Tilden declined a nomination due to his poor health, his supporters shifted to several other contenders.[82] Cleveland was among the leaders in early support, and Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, Samuel Freeman Miller of Iowa, and Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts also had considerable followings, along with various favorite sons.[82] Each of the other candidates had hindrances to his nomination: Bayard had spoken in favor of secession in 1861, making him unacceptable to Northerners; Butler, conversely, was reviled throughout the Southern United States for his actions during the Civil War; Thurman was generally well-liked, but was growing old and infirm, and his views on the silver question were uncertain.[83]

Cleveland, too, had detractors—Tammany remained opposed to him—but the nature of his enemies made him still more friends.[84] Cleveland led on the first ballot, with 392 votes out of 820.[85] On the second ballot, Tammany threw its support behind Butler, but the rest of the delegates shifted to Cleveland, who won.[86] Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana was selected as his running mate.[86]

Campaign against Blaine

Corruption in politics was the central issue in 1884; Blaine had over the span of his career been involved in several questionable deals.[87] Cleveland's reputation as an opponent of corruption proved the Democrats' strongest asset.[88] William C. Hudson created Cleveland's contextual campaign slogan "A public office is a public trust."[89] Reform-minded Republicans called "Mugwumps" denounced Blaine as corrupt and flocked to Cleveland.[90] The Mugwumps, including such men as Carl Schurz and Henry Ward Beecher, were more concerned with morality than with party, and felt Cleveland was a kindred soul who would promote civil service reform and fight for efficiency in government.[90] At the same time that the Democrats gained support from the Mugwumps, they lost some blue-collar workers to the Greenback-Labor party, led by ex-Democrat Benjamin Butler.[91] In general, Cleveland abided by the precedent of minimizing presidential campaign travel and speechmaking; Blaine became one of the first to break with that tradition.[92]

The campaign focused on the candidates' moral standards, as each side cast aspersions on their opponents. Cleveland's supporters rehashed the old allegations that Blaine had corruptly influenced legislation in favor of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad and the Union Pacific Railway, later profiting on the sale of bonds he owned in both companies.[93] Although the stories of Blaine's favors to the railroads had made the rounds eight years earlier, this time Blaine's correspondence was discovered, making his earlier denials less plausible.[93] On some of the most damaging correspondence, Blaine had written "Burn this letter", giving Democrats the last line to their rallying cry: "Blaine, Blaine, James G. Blaine, the continental liar from the state of Maine, 'Burn this letter!'"[94]

Regarding Cleveland, commentator Jeff Jacoby notes that, "Not since George Washington had a candidate for President been so renowned for his rectitude."[95] But the Republicans found a refutation buried in Cleveland's past. Aided by the sermons of Reverend George H. Ball, a minister from Buffalo, they made public the allegation that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer there,[96] and their rallies soon included the chant "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa?".[97] When confronted with the scandal, Cleveland immediately instructed his supporters to "Above all, tell the truth."[53] Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin, the woman who asserted he had fathered her son Oscar Folsom Cleveland and he assumed responsibility.[53] Shortly before the 1884 election, the Republican media published an affidavit from Halpin in which she stated that until she met Cleveland, her "life was pure and spotless", and "there is not, and never was, a doubt as to the paternity of our child, and the attempt of Grover Cleveland, or his friends, to couple the name of Oscar Folsom, or any one else, with that boy, for that purpose is simply infamous and false."[98]

 
Results of the 1884 election

The electoral votes of closely contested New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Connecticut would determine the election.[99] In New York, the Tammany Democrats decided that they would gain more from supporting a Democrat they disliked than a Republican who would do nothing for them.[100] Blaine hoped that he would have more support from Irish Americans than Republicans typically did; while the Irish were mainly a Democratic constituency in the 19th century, Blaine's mother was Irish Catholic, and he had been supportive of the Irish National Land League while he was Secretary of State.[101] The Irish, a significant group in three of the swing states, did appear inclined to support Blaine until a Republican, Samuel D. Burchard, gave a speech pivotal for the Democrats, denouncing them as the party of "Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion".[102] The Democrats spread the word of this implied Catholic insult on the eve of the election. They also blistered Blaine for attending a banquet with some of New York City's wealthiest men.[103]

After the votes were counted, Cleveland narrowly won all four of the swing states, including New York by 1,200 votes.[104] While the popular vote total was close, with Cleveland winning by just one-quarter of a percent, the electoral votes gave Cleveland a majority of 219–182.[104] Following the electoral victory, the "Ma, Ma ..." attack phrase gained a classic riposte: "Gone to the White House. Ha! Ha! Ha!"[105]

First presidency (1885–1889)

Main article: Presidencies of Grover Cleveland § First presidency (1885–1889)

Reform

 
Cleveland portrayed as a tariff reformer

Soon after taking office, Cleveland was faced with the task of filling all the government jobs for which the president had the power of appointment. These jobs were typically filled under the spoils system, but Cleveland announced that he would not fire any Republican who was doing his job well, and would not appoint anyone solely on the basis of party service.[106] He also used his appointment powers to reduce the number of federal employees, as many departments had become bloated with political time-servers.[107] Later in his term, as his fellow Democrats chafed at being excluded from the spoils, Cleveland began to replace more of the partisan Republican officeholders with Democrats;[108] this was especially the case with policymaking positions.[109] While some of his decisions were influenced by party concerns, more of Cleveland's appointments were decided by merit alone than was the case in his predecessors' administrations.[110]

Cleveland also reformed other parts of the government. In 1887, he signed an act creating the Interstate Commerce Commission.[111] He and Secretary of the Navy William C. Whitney undertook to modernize the navy and canceled construction contracts that had resulted in inferior ships.[112] Cleveland angered railroad investors by ordering an investigation of western lands they held by government grant.[113] Secretary of the Interior Lucius Q. C. Lamar charged that the rights of way for this land must be returned to the public because the railroads failed to extend their lines according to agreements.[113] The lands were forfeited, resulting in the return of approximately 81,000,000 acres (330,000 km2).[113]

Cleveland was the first Democratic president subject to the Tenure of Office Act which originated in 1867; the act purported to require the Senate to approve the dismissal of any presidential appointee who was originally subject to its advice and consent. Cleveland objected to the act in principle and his steadfast refusal to abide by it prompted its fall into disfavor and led to its ultimate repeal in 1887.[114]

Vetoes

 
BEP engraved portrait of Cleveland as president

Cleveland faced a Republican Senate and often resorted to using his veto powers.[115] He vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War veterans, believing that if their pensions requests had already been rejected by the Pension Bureau, Congress should not attempt to override that decision.[116] When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service, Cleveland also vetoed that.[117] Cleveland used the veto far more often than any president up to that time.[118] In 1887, Cleveland issued his most well-known veto, that of the Texas Seed Bill.[119] After a drought had ruined crops in several Texas counties, Congress appropriated $100,000 (equivalent to $3,015,926 in 2021) to purchase seed grain for farmers there.[119] Cleveland vetoed the expenditure. In his veto message, he espoused a theory of limited government:

I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted, to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character, while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood.[120]

Silver

One of the most volatile issues of the 1880s was whether the currency should be backed by gold and silver, or by gold alone.[121] The issue cut across party lines, with western Republicans and southern Democrats joining in the call for the free coinage of silver, and both parties' representatives in the northeast holding firm for the gold standard.[122] Because silver was worth less than its legal equivalent in gold, taxpayers paid their government bills in silver, while international creditors demanded payment in gold, resulting in a depletion of the nation's gold supply.[122]

Cleveland and Treasury Secretary Daniel Manning stood firmly on the side of the gold standard, and tried to reduce the amount of silver that the government was required to coin under the Bland–Allison Act of 1878.[123] Cleveland unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to repeal this law before he was inaugurated.[124] Angered Westerners and Southerners advocated for cheap money to help their poorer constituents.[125] In reply, one of the foremost silverites, Richard P. Bland, introduced a bill in 1886 that would require the government to coin unlimited amounts of silver, inflating the then-deflating currency.[126] While Bland's bill was defeated, so was a bill the administration favored that would repeal any silver coinage requirement.[126] The result was a retention of the status quo, and a postponement of the resolution of the free-silver issue.[127]

Tariffs

"When we consider that the theory of our institutions guarantees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and enterprise, with only such deduction as may be his share toward the careful and economical maintenance of the Government which protects him, it is plain that the exaction of more than this is indefensible extortion and a culpable betrayal of American fairness and justice ... The public Treasury, which should only exist as a conduit conveying the people's tribute to its legitimate objects of expenditure, becomes a hoarding place for money needlessly withdrawn from trade and the people's use, thus crippling our national energies, suspending our country's development, preventing investment in productive enterprise, threatening financial disturbance, and inviting schemes of public plunder."
Cleveland's third annual message to Congress,
December 6, 1887.[128]

Another contentious financial issue at the time was the protective tariff. These tariffs had been implemented as a temporary measure during the civil war to protect American industrial interests but remained in place after the war.[129] While it had not been a central point in his campaign, Cleveland's opinion on the tariff was that of most Democrats: that the tariff ought to be reduced.[130] Republicans generally favored a high tariff to protect American industries.[130] American tariffs had been high since the Civil War, and by the 1880s the tariff brought in so much revenue that the government was running a surplus.[131]

In 1886, a bill to reduce the tariff was narrowly defeated in the House.[132] The tariff issue was emphasized in the Congressional elections that year, and the forces of protectionism increased their numbers in the Congress, but Cleveland continued to advocate tariff reform.[133] As the surplus grew, Cleveland and the reformers called for a tariff for revenue only.[134] His message to Congress in 1887 (quoted at right) highlighted the injustice of taking more money from the people than the government needed to pay its operating expenses.[135] Republicans, as well as protectionist northern Democrats like Samuel J. Randall, believed that American industries would fail without high tariffs, and they continued to fight reform efforts.[136] Roger Q. Mills, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, proposed a bill to reduce the tariff from about 47% to about 40%.[137] After significant exertions by Cleveland and his allies, the bill passed the House.[137] The Republican Senate failed to come to an agreement with the Democratic House, and the bill died in the conference committee. Dispute over the tariff persisted into the 1888 presidential election.

Foreign policy, 1885–1889

Cleveland was a committed non-interventionist who had campaigned in opposition to expansion and imperialism. He refused to promote the previous administration's Nicaragua canal treaty, and generally was less of an expansionist in foreign relations.[138] Cleveland's Secretary of State, Thomas F. Bayard, negotiated with Joseph Chamberlain of the United Kingdom over fishing rights in the waters off Canada, and struck a conciliatory note, despite the opposition of New England's Republican Senators.[139] Cleveland also withdrew from Senate consideration of the Berlin Conference treaty which guaranteed an open door for U.S. interests in the Congo.[140]

Military policy, 1885–1889

Cleveland's military policy emphasized self-defense and modernization. In 1885 Cleveland appointed the Board of Fortifications under Secretary of War William C. Endicott to recommend a new coastal fortification system for the United States.[141][142] No improvements to US coastal defenses had been made since the late 1870s.[143][144] The Board's 1886 report recommended a massive $127 million construction program (equivalent to $3.8 billion in 2021) at 29 harbors and river estuaries, to include new breech-loading rifled guns, mortars, and naval minefields. The Board and the program are usually called the Endicott Board and the Endicott Program. Most of the Board's recommendations were implemented, and by 1910, 27 locations were defended by over 70 forts.[145][146] Many of the weapons remained in place until scrapped in World War II as they were replaced with new defenses. Endicott also proposed to Congress a system of examinations for Army officer promotions.[147] For the Navy, the Cleveland administration spearheaded by Secretary of the Navy William Collins Whitney moved towards modernization, although no ships were constructed that could match the best European warships. Although completion of the four steel-hulled warships begun under the previous administration was delayed due to a corruption investigation and subsequent bankruptcy of their building yard, these ships were completed in a timely manner in naval shipyards once the investigation was over.[148] Sixteen additional steel-hulled warships were ordered by the end of 1888; these ships later proved vital in the Spanish–American War of 1898, and many served in World War I. These ships included the "second-class battleships" Maine and Texas, designed to match modern armored ships recently acquired by South American countries from Europe, such as the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo.[149] Eleven protected cruisers (including the famous Olympia), one armored cruiser, and one monitor were also ordered, along with the experimental cruiser Vesuvius.[150]

Civil rights and immigration

Cleveland, like a growing number of Northerners and nearly all white Southerners, saw Reconstruction as a failed experiment, and was reluctant to use federal power to enforce the 15th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guaranteed voting rights to African Americans.[151] Though Cleveland appointed no black Americans to patronage jobs, he allowed Frederick Douglass to continue in his post as recorder of deeds in Washington, D.C., and appointed another black man (James Campbell Matthews, a former New York judge) to replace Douglass upon his resignation.[151] His decision to replace Douglass with a black man was met with outrage, but Cleveland claimed to have known Matthews personally.[152]

Although Cleveland had condemned the "outrages" against Chinese immigrants, he believed that Chinese immigrants were unwilling to assimilate into white society.[153] Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard negotiated an extension to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Cleveland lobbied the Congress to pass the Scott Act, written by Congressman William Lawrence Scott, which prevented the return of Chinese immigrants who left the United States.[154] The Scott Act easily passed both houses of Congress, and Cleveland signed it into law on October 1, 1888.[154]

Native American policy

 
Henry L. Dawes wrote the Dawes Act, which Cleveland signed into law.

Cleveland viewed Native Americans as wards of the state, saying in his first inaugural address that "[t]his guardianship involves, on our part, efforts for the improvement of their condition and enforcement of their rights."[155] He encouraged the idea of cultural assimilation, pushing for the passage of the Dawes Act, which provided for the distribution of Indian lands to individual members of tribes, rather than having them continued to be held in trust for the tribes by the federal government.[155] While a conference of Native leaders endorsed the act, in practice the majority of Native Americans disapproved of it.[156] Cleveland believed the Dawes Act would lift Native Americans out of poverty and encourage their assimilation into white society. It ultimately weakened the tribal governments and allowed individual Indians to sell land and keep the money.[155]

In the month before Cleveland's 1885 inauguration, President Arthur opened four million acres of Winnebago and Crow Creek Indian lands in the Dakota Territory to white settlement by executive order.[157] Tens of thousands of settlers gathered at the border of these lands and prepared to take possession of them.[157] Cleveland believed Arthur's order to be in violation of treaties with the tribes, and rescinded it on April 17 of that year, ordering the settlers out of the territory.[157] Cleveland sent in eighteen companies of Army troops to enforce the treaties and ordered General Philip Sheridan, at the time Commanding General of the U.S. Army, to investigate the matter.[157]

Marriage and children

Main article: Wedding of Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom
 
Frances Folsom Cleveland circa 1886

Cleveland was 47 years old when he entered the White House as a bachelor. His sister Rose Cleveland joined him, acting as hostess for the first two years of his administration.[158] Unlike the previous bachelor president James Buchanan, Cleveland did not remain a bachelor for long. In 1885 the daughter of Cleveland's friend Oscar Folsom visited him in Washington.[159] Frances Folsom was a student at Wells College. When she returned to school, President Cleveland received her mother's permission to correspond with her, and they were soon engaged to be married.[159] The wedding occurred on June 2, 1886, in the Blue Room at the White House. Cleveland was 49 years old at the time; Frances was 21.[160] She remains the youngest wife of a sitting president. He was the second president to wed while in office[c] and remains the only president to marry in the White House. This marriage was unusual because Cleveland was the executor of Oscar Folsom's estate and had supervised Frances's upbringing after her father's death; nevertheless, the public took no exception to the match.[161] At 21 years, Frances Folsom Cleveland was the youngest First Lady in history, and soon became popular for her warm personality.[162]

The Clevelands had five children: Ruth (1891–1904), Esther (1893–1980), Marion (1895–1977), Richard (1897–1974), and Francis (1903–1995). British philosopher Philippa Foot (1920–2010) was their granddaughter.[163] Esther was born in the White House on September 9, 1893. She is the only child of a President to have been born there.

Cleveland also claimed paternity of an additional child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland with Maria Crofts Halpin.[164]

Administration and Cabinet

 
Cleveland's first Cabinet.
Front row, left to right: Thomas F. Bayard, Cleveland, Daniel Manning, Lucius Q. C. Lamar
Back row, left to right: William F. Vilas, William C. Whitney, William C. Endicott, Augustus H. Garland

Judicial appointments

Main article: List of federal judges appointed by Grover Cleveland
 
Chief Justice Melville Fuller

During his first term, Cleveland successfully nominated two justices to the Supreme Court of the United States. The first, Lucius Q. C. Lamar, was a former Mississippi senator who served in Cleveland's Cabinet as Interior Secretary. When William Burnham Woods died, Cleveland nominated Lamar to his seat in late 1887. While Lamar had been well-liked as a senator, his service under the Confederacy two decades earlier caused many Republicans to vote against him. Lamar's nomination was confirmed by the narrow margin of 32 to 28.[165]

Chief Justice Morrison Waite died a few months later, and Cleveland nominated Melville Fuller to fill his seat on April 30, 1888. Fuller accepted. He had previously declined Cleveland's nomination to the Civil Service Commission, preferring his Chicago law practice. The Senate Judiciary Committee spent several months examining the little-known nominee, before the Senate confirmed the nomination 41 to 20.[166][167]

Cleveland nominated 41 lower federal court judges in addition to his four Supreme Court justices. These included two judges to the United States circuit courts, nine judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 30 judges to the United States district courts. Because Cleveland served terms both before and after Congress eliminated the circuit courts in favor of the Courts of Appeals, he is one of only two presidents to have appointed judges to both bodies. The other, Benjamin Harrison, was in office at the time that the change was made. Thus, all of Cleveland's appointments to the circuit courts were made in his first term, and all of his appointments to the Courts of Appeals were made in his second.

Election of 1888 and return to private life (1889–1893)

Defeated by Harrison

Main articles: 1888 United States presidential election and Grover Cleveland 1888 presidential campaign
 
Poster President Cleveland and Allen G. Thurman of Ohio (1888).
 
Results of the 1888 Election

The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison, the former U.S. Senator from Indiana for president and Levi P. Morton of New York for vice president. Cleveland was renominated at the Democratic convention in St. Louis.[168] Following Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks' death in 1885, the Democrats chose Allen G. Thurman of Ohio to be Cleveland's new running mate.[168]

The Republicans gained the upper hand in the campaign, as Cleveland's campaign was poorly managed by Calvin S. Brice and William H. Barnum, whereas Harrison had engaged more aggressive fundraisers and tacticians in Matt Quay and John Wanamaker.[169]

The Republicans campaigned heavily on the tariff issue, turning out protectionist voters in the important industrial states of the North.[170] Further, the Democrats in New York were divided over the gubernatorial candidacy of David B. Hill, weakening Cleveland's support in that swing state.[171] A letter from the British ambassador supporting Cleveland caused a scandal that cost Cleveland votes in New York.

As in 1884, the election focused on the swing states of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana. But unlike that year, when Cleveland had triumphed in all four, in 1888 he won only two, losing his home state of New York by 14,373 votes. Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote – 48.6 percent vs. 47.8 percent for Harrison – but Harrison won the Electoral College vote easily, 233–168.[172] The Republicans won Indiana, largely as the result of a fraudulent voting practice known as Blocks of Five.[173] Cleveland continued his duties diligently until the end of the term and began to look forward to returning to private life.[174]

Private citizen for four years

As Frances Cleveland left the White House, she told a staff member, "Now, Jerry, I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house, for I want to find everything just as it is now, when we come back again." When asked when she would return, she responded, "We are coming back four years from today."[175] In the meantime, the Clevelands moved to New York City, where Cleveland took a position with the law firm of Bangs, Stetson, Tracy, and MacVeigh. This affiliation was more of an office-sharing arrangement, though quite compatible. Cleveland's law practice brought only a moderate income, perhaps because Cleveland spent considerable time at the couple's vacation home Gray Gables at Buzzard Bay, where fishing became his obsession.[176] While they lived in New York, the Clevelands' first child, Ruth, was born in 1891.[177]

The Harrison administration worked with Congress to pass the McKinley Tariff, an aggressively protectionist measure, and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which increased money backed by silver;[178] these were among policies Cleveland deplored as dangerous to the nation's financial health.[179] At first he refrained from criticizing his successor, but by 1891 Cleveland felt compelled to speak out, addressing his concerns in an open letter to a meeting of reformers in New York.[180] The "silver letter" thrust Cleveland's name back into the spotlight just as the 1892 election was approaching.[181]

Election of 1892

Main articles: 1892 United States presidential election and Grover Cleveland 1892 presidential campaign

Nomination for president

Main article: 1892 Democratic National Convention

Cleveland's enduring reputation as chief executive and his recent pronouncements on the monetary issues made him a leading contender for the Democratic nomination.[182] His leading opponent was David B. Hill, a Senator for New York.[183] Hill united the anti-Cleveland elements of the Democratic party—silverites, protectionists, and Tammany Hall—but was unable to create a coalition large enough to deny Cleveland the nomination.[183] Despite some desperate maneuvering by Hill, Cleveland was nominated on the first ballot at the party convention in Chicago.[184] For vice president, the Democrats chose to balance the ticket with Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois, a silverite.[185]

Although the Cleveland forces preferred Isaac P. Gray of Indiana for vice president, they accepted the convention favorite.[186] As a supporter of greenbacks and free silver to inflate the currency and alleviate economic distress in the rural districts, Stevenson balanced the otherwise hard-money, gold-standard ticket headed by Cleveland.[187]

Campaign against Harrison

 
Results of the 1892 election

The Republicans re-nominated President Harrison, making the 1892 election a rematch of the one four years earlier. Unlike the turbulent and controversial elections of 1876, 1884, and 1888, the 1892 election was, according to Cleveland biographer Allan Nevins, "the cleanest, quietest, and most creditable in the memory of the post-war generation",[188] in part because Harrison's wife, Caroline, was dying of tuberculosis.[189] Harrison did not personally campaign at all. Following Caroline Harrison's death on October 25, two weeks before the national election, Cleveland and all of the other candidates stopped campaigning, thus making Election Day a somber and quiet event for the whole country as well as the candidates.

The issue of the tariff had worked to the Republicans' advantage in 1888. Now, however, the legislative revisions of the past four years had made imported goods so expensive that by 1892 many voters favored tariff reform and were skeptical of big business.[190] Many Westerners (traditionally Republican voters), defected to James B. Weaver, the candidate of the new Populist Party. Weaver promised free silver, generous veterans' pensions, and an eight-hour day.[191] The Tammany Hall Democrats adhered to the national ticket, allowing a united Democratic party to carry New York.[192] At the campaign's end, many Populists and labor supporters endorsed Cleveland after an attempt by the Carnegie Corporation to break the union during the Homestead strike in Pittsburgh and after a similar conflict between big business and labor at the Tennessee Coal and Iron Co.[193] The final result was a victory for Cleveland by wide margins in both the popular and electoral votes, and it was Cleveland's third consecutive popular vote plurality.[194]

Second presidency (1893–1897)

Main article: Presidencies of Grover Cleveland § Second presidency (1893–1897)

Economic panic and the silver issue

 
Caricature of Cleveland as anti-silver.

Shortly after Cleveland's second term began, the Panic of 1893 struck the stock market, and he soon faced an acute economic depression.[195] The panic was worsened by the acute shortage of gold that resulted from the increased coinage of silver, and Cleveland called Congress into special session to deal with the problem.[196] The debate over the coinage was as heated as ever, and the effects of the panic had driven more moderates to support repealing the coinage provisions of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act.[196] Even so, the silverites rallied their following at a convention in Chicago, and the House of Representatives debated for fifteen weeks before passing the repeal by a considerable margin.[197] In the Senate, the repeal of silver coinage was equally contentious. Cleveland, forced against his better judgment to lobby the Congress for repeal, convinced enough Democrats—and along with eastern Republicans, they formed a 48–37 majority for repeal.[198] Depletion of the Treasury's gold reserves continued, at a lesser rate, and subsequent bond issues replenished supplies of gold.[199] At the time the repeal seemed a minor setback to silverites, but it marked the beginning of the end of silver as a basis for American currency.[200]

Tariff reform

 
Cleveland's humiliation by Gorman and the sugar trust

Having succeeded in reversing the Harrison administration's silver policy, Cleveland sought next to reverse the effects of the McKinley Tariff. The Wilson–Gorman Tariff Act was introduced by West Virginian Representative William L. Wilson in December 1893.[201] After lengthy debate, the bill passed the House by a considerable margin.[202] The bill proposed moderate downward revisions in the tariff, especially on raw materials.[203] The shortfall in revenue was to be made up by an income tax of two percent on income above $4,000 (equivalent to $120,637 in 2021).[203]

The bill was next considered in the Senate, where it faced stronger opposition from key Democrats led by Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland, who insisted on more protection for their states' industries than the Wilson bill allowed.[204] The bill passed the Senate with more than 600 amendments attached that nullified most of the reforms.[205] The Sugar Trust in particular lobbied for changes that favored it at the expense of the consumer.[206] Cleveland was outraged with the final bill, and denounced it as a disgraceful product of the control of the Senate by trusts and business interests.[207] Even so, he believed it was an improvement over the McKinley tariff and allowed it to become law without his signature.[208]

Voting rights

In 1892, Cleveland had campaigned against the Lodge Bill,[209] which would have strengthened voting rights protections through the appointing of federal supervisors of congressional elections upon a petition from the citizens of any district. The Enforcement Act of 1871 had provided for a detailed federal overseeing of the electoral process, from registration to the certification of returns. Cleveland succeeded in ushering in the 1894 repeal of this law (ch. 25, 28 Stat. 36).[210] The pendulum thus swung from stronger attempts to protect voting rights to the repealing of voting rights protections; this in turn led to unsuccessful attempts to have the federal courts protect voting rights in Giles v. Harris, 189 U.S. 475 (1903), and Giles v. Teasley, 193 U.S. 146 (1904).

Labor unrest

 
John Tyler Morgan, Senator from Alabama, opposed Cleveland on free silver, the tariff, and the Hawaii treaty, saying of Cleveland that "I hate the ground that man walks on."[211]

The Panic of 1893 had damaged labor conditions across the United States, and the victory of anti-silver legislation worsened the mood of western laborers.[212] A group of workingmen led by Jacob S. Coxey began to march east toward Washington, D.C., to protest Cleveland's policies.[212] This group, known as Coxey's Army, agitated in favor of a national roads program to give jobs to workingmen, and a weakened currency to help farmers pay their debts.[212] By the time they reached Washington, only a few hundred remained, and when they were arrested the next day for walking on the lawn of the United States Capitol, the group scattered.[212] Even though Coxey's Army may not have been a threat to the government, it signaled a growing dissatisfaction in the West with Eastern monetary policies.[213]

Pullman Strike

Main article: Pullman Strike

The Pullman Strike had a significantly greater impact than Coxey's Army. A strike began against the Pullman Company over low wages and twelve-hour workdays, and sympathy strikes, led by American Railway Union leader Eugene V. Debs, soon followed.[214] By June 1894, 125,000 railroad workers were on strike, paralyzing the nation's commerce.[215] Because the railroads carried the mail, and because several of the affected lines were in federal receivership, Cleveland believed a federal solution was appropriate.[216] Cleveland obtained an injunction in federal court, and when the strikers refused to obey it, he sent federal troops into Chicago and 20 other rail centers.[217] "If it takes the entire army and navy of the United States to deliver a postcard in Chicago", he proclaimed, "that card will be delivered."[218] Most governors supported Cleveland except Democrat John P. Altgeld of Illinois, who became his bitter foe in 1896. Leading newspapers of both parties applauded Cleveland's actions, but the use of troops hardened the attitude of organized labor toward his administration.[219]

Just before the 1894 election, Cleveland was warned by Francis Lynde Stetson, an advisor: "We are on the eve of [a] very dark night, unless a return of commercial prosperity relieves popular discontent with what they believe [is] Democratic incompetence to make laws, and consequently [discontent] with Democratic Administrations anywhere and everywhere."[220] The warning was appropriate, for in the Congressional elections, Republicans won their biggest landslide in decades, taking full control of the House, while the Populists lost most of their support. Cleveland's factional enemies gained control of the Democratic Party in state after state, including full control in Illinois and Michigan, and made major gains in Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and other states. Wisconsin and Massachusetts were two of the few states that remained under the control of Cleveland's allies. The Democratic opposition were close to controlling two-thirds of the vote at the 1896 national convention, which they needed to nominate their own candidate. They failed for lack of unity and a national leader, as Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld had been born in Germany and was ineligible to be nominated for president.[221]

Foreign policy, 1893–1897

Further information: Venezuela Crisis of 1895
"I suppose that right and justice should determine the path to be followed in treating this subject. If national honesty is to be disregarded and a desire for territorial expansion or dissatisfaction with a form of government not our own ought to regulate our conduct, I have entirely misapprehended the mission and character of our government and the behavior which the conscience of the people demands of their public servants."
Cleveland's message to Congress on the Hawaiian question, December 18, 1893.[222]
 
His Little Hawaiian Game Checkmated, 1894

When Cleveland took office he faced the question of Hawaiian annexation. In his first term, he had supported free trade with Hawai'i and accepted an amendment that gave the United States a coaling and naval station in Pearl Harbor.[140] In the intervening four years, Honolulu businessmen of European and American ancestry had denounced Queen Liliuokalani as a tyrant who rejected constitutional government. In early 1893 they overthrew her, set up a republican government under Sanford B. Dole, and sought to join the United States.[223] The Harrison administration had quickly agreed with representatives of the new government on a treaty of annexation and submitted it to the Senate for approval.[223] Five days after taking office on March 9, 1893, Cleveland withdrew the treaty from the Senate and sent former Congressman James Henderson Blount to Hawai'i to investigate the conditions there.[224]

Cleveland agreed with Blount's report, which found the old native populace to be opposed to annexation.[224] Liliuokalani initially refused to grant amnesty as a condition of her reinstatement, saying that she would either execute or banish the current government in Honolulu; Dole's government was in full control and rejected her demands.[225] By December 1893, the matter was still unresolved, and Cleveland referred the issue to Congress.[225] In his message to Congress, Cleveland rejected the idea of annexation and encouraged the Congress to continue the American tradition of non-intervention (see excerpt at right).[222] The Senate, under Democratic control but opposed to Cleveland, commissioned and produced the Morgan Report, which contradicted Blount's findings and found the overthrow was a completely internal affair.[226] Cleveland dropped all talk of reinstating the Queen, and went on to recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the new Republic of Hawaii.[227]

Closer to home, Cleveland adopted a broad interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine that not only prohibited new European colonies, but also declared an American national interest in any matter of substance within the hemisphere.[228] When Britain and Venezuela disagreed over the boundary between Venezuela and the colony of British Guiana, Cleveland and Secretary of State Richard Olney protested.[229] British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury and the British ambassador to Washington, Julian Pauncefote, misjudged how important the dispute was to Washington, and to the anti-British Irish Catholic element in Cleveland's Democratic Party. They prolonged the crisis before accepting the American demand for arbitration.[230][231] An international tribunal in 1899 awarded the bulk of the disputed territory to British Guiana.[232] But by standing with a Latin American nation against the encroachment of a colonial power, Cleveland improved relations with Latin America. The cordial manner in which the arbitration was conducted also strengthened relations with Britain and encouraged the major powers to consider arbitration as a way to settle their disputes.[233]

Military policy, 1893–1897

The second Cleveland administration was as committed to military modernization as the first, and ordered the first ships of a navy capable of offensive action. Construction continued on the Endicott program of coastal fortifications begun under Cleveland's first administration.[141][142] The adoption of the Krag–Jørgensen rifle, the US Army's first bolt-action repeating rifle, was finalized.[234][235] In 1895–1896 Secretary of the Navy Hilary A. Herbert, having recently adopted the aggressive naval strategy advocated by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan, successfully proposed ordering five battleships (the Kearsarge and Illinois classes) and sixteen torpedo boats.[236][237] Completion of these ships nearly doubled the Navy's battleships and created a new torpedo boat force, which previously had only two boats. The battleships and seven of the torpedo boats were not completed until 1899–1901, after the Spanish–American War.[238]

Cancer

 
Official portrait of President Cleveland by Eastman Johnson, c. 1891

In the midst of the fight for repeal of free-silver coinage in 1893, Cleveland sought the advice of the White House doctor, Dr. O'Reilly, about soreness on the roof of his mouth and a crater-like edge ulcer with a granulated surface on the left side of Cleveland's hard palate. Clinical samples were sent anonymously to the Army Medical Museum; the diagnosis was an epithelioma, rather than a malignant cancer.[239]

Cleveland decided to have surgery secretly, to avoid further panic that might worsen the financial depression.[240] The surgery occurred on July 1, to give Cleveland time to make a full recovery in time for the upcoming Congressional session.[241] Under the guise of a vacation cruise, Cleveland and his surgeon, Dr. Joseph Bryant, left for New York. The surgeons operated aboard the Oneida, a yacht owned by Cleveland's friend E. C. Benedict, as it sailed off Long Island.[242] The surgery was conducted through the President's mouth, to avoid any scars or other signs of surgery.[243] The team, sedating Cleveland with nitrous oxide and ether, successfully removed parts of his upper left jaw and hard palate.[243] The size of the tumor and the extent of the operation left Cleveland's mouth disfigured.[244] During another surgery, Cleveland was fitted with a hard rubber dental prosthesis that corrected his speech and restored his appearance.[244] A cover story about the removal of two bad teeth kept the suspicious press placated.[245] Even when a newspaper story appeared giving details of the actual operation, the participating surgeons discounted the severity of what transpired during Cleveland's vacation.[244] In 1917, one of the surgeons present on the Oneida, Dr. William W. Keen, wrote an article detailing the operation.[246]

Cleveland enjoyed many years of life after the tumor was removed, and there was some debate as to whether it was actually malignant. Several doctors, including Dr. Keen, stated after Cleveland's death that the tumor was a carcinoma.[246] Other suggestions included ameloblastoma[247] or a benign salivary mixed tumor (also known as a pleomorphic adenoma).[248] In the 1980s, analysis of the specimen finally confirmed the tumor to be verrucous carcinoma,[249] a low-grade epithelial cancer with a low potential for metastasis.[239]

Administration and cabinet

 
Cleveland's last Cabinet.
Front row, left to right: Daniel S. Lamont, Richard Olney, Cleveland, John G. Carlisle, Judson Harmon
Back row, left to right: David R. Francis, William Lyne Wilson, Hilary A. Herbert, Julius S. Morton

Judicial appointments

Main article: List of federal judges appointed by Grover Cleveland

Cleveland's trouble with the Senate hindered the success of his nominations to the Supreme Court in his second term. In 1893, after the death of Samuel Blatchford, Cleveland nominated William B. Hornblower to the Court.[250] Hornblower, the head of a New York City law firm, was thought to be a qualified appointee, but his campaign against a New York machine politician had made Senator David B. Hill his enemy.[250] Further, Cleveland had not consulted the Senators before naming his appointee, leaving many who were already opposed to Cleveland on other grounds even more aggrieved.[250] The Senate rejected Hornblower's nomination on January 15, 1894, by a vote of 30 to 24.[250]

Cleveland continued to defy the Senate by next appointing Wheeler Hazard Peckham another New York attorney who had opposed Hill's machine in that state.[251] Hill used all of his influence to block Peckham's confirmation, and on February 16, 1894, the Senate rejected the nomination by a vote of 32 to 41.[251] Reformers urged Cleveland to continue the fight against Hill and to nominate Frederic R. Coudert, but Cleveland acquiesced in an inoffensive choice, that of Senator Edward Douglass White of Louisiana, whose nomination was accepted unanimously.[251] Later, in 1895, another vacancy on the Court led Cleveland to consider Hornblower again, but he declined to be nominated.[252] Instead, Cleveland nominated Rufus Wheeler Peckham, the brother of Wheeler Hazard Peckham, and the Senate confirmed the second Peckham easily.[252]

States admitted to the Union

No new states were admitted to the Union during Cleveland's first term. On February 22, 1889, 10 days before leaving office, the 50th Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1889, authorizing North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, and Washington to form state governments and to gain admission to the Union. All four officially became states in November 1889, during the first year of the Benjamin Harrison administration.[253][254] During his second term, the 53rd United States Congress passed an Enabling Act that permitted Utah to apply for statehood. Cleveland signed it on July 16, 1894.[255][256] Utah joined the Union as the 45th state on January 4, 1896.

1896 election and retirement (1897–1908)

 
Cleveland in 1903 at age 66 by Frederick Gutekunst

Cleveland's agrarian and silverite enemies gained control of the Democratic Party in 1896, repudiated his administration and the gold standard, and nominated William Jennings Bryan on a free-silver platform.[257][258] Cleveland silently supported the Gold Democrats' third-party ticket that promised to defend the gold standard, limit government, and oppose high tariffs, but he declined their nomination for a third term.[259] The party won only 100,000 votes in the general election, and William McKinley, the Republican nominee, triumphed easily over Bryan.[260] Agrarians nominated Bryan again in 1900. In 1904, the conservatives, with Cleveland's support, regained control of the Democratic Party and nominated Alton B. Parker.[261]

 
Outgoing President Cleveland, at right, stands nearby as William McKinley is sworn in as president by Chief Justice Melville Fuller.

After leaving the White House on March 4, 1897, Cleveland lived in retirement at his estate, Westland Mansion, in Princeton, New Jersey.[262] For a time, he was a trustee of Princeton University, and was one of the majority of trustees who preferred the dean Andrew Fleming West's plans for the Graduate School and undergraduate living over those of Woodrow Wilson, then president of the university.[263] Cleveland consulted occasionally with President Theodore Roosevelt (1901–1909) but was financially unable to accept the chairmanship of the commission handling the Coal Strike of 1902.[264] Cleveland still made his views known in political matters. In a 1905 article in The Ladies Home Journal, Cleveland weighed in on the women's suffrage movement, writing that "sensible and responsible women do not want to vote. The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence."[265]

 
The last known photograph of Cleveland by Underwood & Underwood (1907)

In 1906, a group of New Jersey Democrats promoted Cleveland as a possible candidate for the United States Senate. The incumbent, John F. Dryden, was not seeking re-election, and some Democrats felt that the former president could attract the votes of some disaffected Republican legislators who might be drawn to Cleveland's statesmanship and conservatism.[266]

Death

Cleveland's health had been declining for several years, and in the autumn of 1907 he fell seriously ill.[267] In 1908, he suffered a heart attack and died on June 24 at age 71 in his Princeton residence.[267][268] His last words were, "I have tried so hard to do right."[269] He is buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church.[270]

Honors and memorials

In his first term in office, Cleveland sought a summer house to escape the heat and smells of Washington, D.C., near enough the capital. He secretly bought a farmhouse, Oak View (or Oak Hill), in a rural upland part of the District of Columbia, in 1886, and remodeled it into a Queen Anne style summer estate. He sold Oak View upon losing his bid for re-election in 1888. Not long thereafter, suburban residential development reached the area, which came to be known as Oak View, and then Cleveland Heights, and eventually Cleveland Park.[271] The Clevelands are depicted in local murals.[272]

Grover Cleveland Hall at Buffalo State College in Buffalo, New York is named after Cleveland. Cleveland Hall houses the offices of the college president, vice presidents, and other administrative functions and student services. Cleveland was a member of the first board of directors of the then Buffalo Normal School.[273] Grover Cleveland Middle School in his birthplace, Caldwell, New Jersey, was named for him, as is Grover Cleveland High School in Buffalo, New York, and the town of Cleveland, Mississippi. Mount Cleveland, a volcano in Alaska, is also named after him.[274] In 1895 he became the first U.S. president who was filmed.[275]

The first U.S. postage stamp to honor Cleveland appeared in 1923. This twelve-cent issue accompanied a thirteen-cent stamp in the same definitive series that depicted his old rival, Benjamin Harrison. Cleveland's only two subsequent stamp appearances have been in issues devoted to the full roster of U.S. Presidents, released, respectively, in 1938 and 1986.

Cleveland's portrait was on the U.S. $1000 bill of series 1928 and series 1934. He also appeared on the first few issues of the $20 Federal Reserve Notes from 1914. Since he was both the 22nd and 24th president, he was featured on two separate dollar coins released in 2012 as part of the Presidential $1 Coin Act of 2005.

In 2013, Cleveland was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame.

See also

References

Informational notes

  1. ^ Vice President Hendricks died in office. As this was prior to the adoption of the Twenty-fifth Amendment in 1967, a vacancy in the office of vice president was not filled until the next ensuing election and inauguration.
  2. ^ He is therefore the only person to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents.
  3. ^ John Tyler, who married his second wife Julia Gardiner in 1844, was the first.

Citations

  1. ^ Blum, 527
  2. ^ Jeffers, 8–12; Nevins, 4–5; Beito and Beito
  3. ^ McFarland, 11–56
  4. ^ Gould, passim
  5. ^ a b Tugwell, 220–249
  6. ^ Nevins, 4
  7. ^ President-Making in the Gilded Age: The Nominating Conventions of 1876–1900 by Stan M. Haynes page 2
  8. ^ Nevins, 8–10
  9. ^ Graff, 3–4; Nevins, 8–10
  10. ^ Graff, 3–4
  11. ^ Nevins, 6
  12. ^ Nevins, 9
  13. ^ Graff, 7
  14. ^ Nevins, 10; Graff, 3
  15. ^ Nevins, 11; Graff, 8–9
  16. ^ Nevins, 11
  17. ^ Jeffers, 17
  18. ^ Nevins, 17–19
  19. ^ Tugwell, 14
  20. ^ a b Nevins, 21
  21. ^ Nevins, 18–19; Jeffers, 19
  22. ^ Nevins, 23–27
  23. ^ Nevins, 27–33
  24. ^ Nevins, 31–36
  25. ^ Graff, 11
  26. ^ a b c Graff, 14
  27. ^ Graff, 14–15
  28. ^ Graff, 15; Nevins, 46
  29. ^ Graff, 14; Nevins, 51–52
  30. ^ a b Nevins, 52–53
  31. ^ Nevins, 54
  32. ^ Nevins, 54–55
  33. ^ Nevins, 55–56
  34. ^ Nevins, 56
  35. ^ Tugwell, 26
  36. ^ Nevins, 44–45
  37. ^ Tugwell, 32
  38. ^ a b Nevins, 58
  39. ^ Jeffers, 33
  40. ^ Nelson, Julie (2003). American Presidents Year by Year. Routledge. p. 334. ISBN 978-0-7656-8046-4.
  41. ^ Tugwell, 36
  42. ^ a b c Jeffers, 34; Nevins, 61–62
  43. ^ . The Buffalonian. Archived from the original on October 6, 2017. Retrieved March 27, 2008.
  44. ^ Jeffers, 36; Nevins, 64
  45. ^ Nevins, 66–71
  46. ^ Nevins, 78
  47. ^ "Sexual misconduct allegations against presidents have a long history; George H.W. Bush is latest". Newsweek. October 25, 2017.
  48. ^ Keiles, Jamie Lauren (August 26, 2015). "Grover Cleveland, a Rapist President". Vice.
  49. ^ Serratore, Angela (September 26, 2013). "President Cleveland's Problem Child". Smithsonian Magazine.
  50. ^ a b c d Huck, C., 2017. "The Halpin Affair: How Cleveland went from Scandal to Success". Wittenberg History Journal, vol. 46, p. 5, 8.
  51. ^ Lachman, Charles (May 23, 2011). "Grover Cleveland's Sex Scandal: The Most Despicable in American Political History". The Daily Beast. Retrieved July 3, 2020.
  52. ^ a b Hamilton, Neil A. (2005). Presidents: A Biographical Dictionary. Infobase Publishing. p. 183. ISBN 978-1-4381-0816-2.
  53. ^ a b c Henry F. Graff (2002). Grover Cleveland: The American Presidents Series: The 22nd and 24th President, 1885–1889 and 1893–1897. Henry Holt and Company. pp. 60–63. ISBN 978-0-8050-6923-5.
  54. ^ Nevins, 79; Graff, 18–19; Jeffers, 42–45; Welch, 24
  55. ^ Nevins, 79–80; Graff, 18–19; Welch, 24
  56. ^ a b Nevins, 80–81
  57. ^ Nevins, 83
  58. ^ "Timeline - Articles and Essays - Grover Cleveland Papers - Digital Collections". The Library of Congress. October 29, 1947. Retrieved April 2, 2023.
  59. ^ Graff, 19; Jeffers, 46–50
  60. ^ a b Nevins, 84–86
  61. ^ Nevins, 85
  62. ^ Nevins, 86
  63. ^ Tugwell, 58
  64. ^ Nevins, 94–95; Jeffers, 50–51
  65. ^ a b Nevins, 94–99; Graff, 26–27
  66. ^ Tugwell, 68–70
  67. ^ Graff, 26; Nevins, 101–103
  68. ^ Nevins, 103–104
  69. ^ Nevins, 105
  70. ^ Graff, 28
  71. ^ Graff, 35
  72. ^ Graff, 35–36
  73. ^ Nevins, 114–116
  74. ^ a b c Nevins, 116–117
  75. ^ a b Nevins, 117–118
  76. ^ Nevins, 125–126
  77. ^ Tugwell, 77
  78. ^ Tugwell, 73
  79. ^ Nevins, 138–140
  80. ^ a b Nevins, 185–186; Jeffers, 96–97
  81. ^ Tugwell, 88
  82. ^ a b c Nevins, 146–147
  83. ^ Nevins, 147
  84. ^ Nevins, 152–153; Graff, 51–53
  85. ^ Nevins, 153
  86. ^ a b Nevins, 154; Graff, 53–54
  87. ^ Tugwell, 80
  88. ^ Summers, passim; Grossman, 31
  89. ^ Tugwell, 84
  90. ^ a b Nevins, 156–159; Graff, 55
  91. ^ Nevins, 187–188
  92. ^ Tugwell, 93
  93. ^ a b Nevins, 159–162; Graff, 59–60
  94. ^ Graff, 59; Jeffers, 111; Nevins, 177, Welch, 34
  95. ^ Jeff Jacoby, "'Grover the good'—the most honest president of them all", Boston Globe February 15, 2015, pp. 2–15
  96. ^ Lachman, Charles (2011). "Chapter 9 – "A Terrible Tale"". A Secret Life: The Sex, Lies, and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland. Skyhorse Publishing. pp. 195–216. ISBN 978-1-61608-275-8. Retrieved October 14, 2016.
  97. ^ Tugwell, 90
  98. ^ Lachman, Charles (2011). A Secret Life: The Sex, Lies, and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland. Skyhorse Publishing. pp. 285–288. ISBN 978-1-61608-275-8.
  99. ^ Welch, 33
  100. ^ Nevins, 170–171
  101. ^ Nevins, 170
  102. ^ Nevins, 181–184
  103. ^ Tugwell, 94–95
  104. ^ a b Leip, David. "1884 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved January 27, 2008., "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved January 27, 2008.
  105. ^ Graff, 64
  106. ^ Nevins, 208–211
  107. ^ Nevins, 214–217
  108. ^ Graff, 83
  109. ^ Tugwell, 100
  110. ^ Nevins, 238–241; Welch, 59–60
  111. ^ Nevins, 354–357; Graff, 85
  112. ^ Nevins, 217–223; Graff, 77
  113. ^ a b c Nevins, 223–228
  114. ^ Tugwell, 130–134
  115. ^ Graff, 85
  116. ^ Nevins, 326–328; Graff, 83–84
  117. ^ Nevins, 300–331; Graff, 83
  118. ^ See List of United States presidential vetoes
  119. ^ a b Nevins, 331–332; Graff, 85
  120. ^ "Cleveland's Veto of the Texas Seed Bill". The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland. New York: Cassell Publishing Co. 1892. p. 450. ISBN 978-0-217-89899-7.
  121. ^ Jeffers, 157–158
  122. ^ a b Nevins, 201–205; Graff, 102–103
  123. ^ Nevins, 269
  124. ^ Tugwell, 110
  125. ^ Nevins, 268
  126. ^ a b Nevins, 273
  127. ^ Nevins, 277–279
  128. ^ The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland. New York: Cassell Publishing Co. 1892. pp. 72–73. ISBN 978-0-217-89899-7.
  129. ^ "Grover Cleveland: Key Events" University of Virginia Miller Center. Retrieved June 3, 2019.
  130. ^ a b Nevins, 280–282, Reitano, 46–62
  131. ^ Nevins, 286–287
  132. ^ Nevins, 287–288
  133. ^ Nevins, 290–296; Graff, 87–88
  134. ^ Nevins, 370–371
  135. ^ Nevins, 379–381
  136. ^ Nevins, 383–385
  137. ^ a b Graff, 88–89
  138. ^ Nevins, 205, 404–405
  139. ^ Nevins, 404–413
  140. ^ a b Zakaria, 80
  141. ^ a b Berhow, pp. 9–10
  142. ^ a b . Archived from the original on February 4, 2016.
  143. ^ Berhow, p. 8
  144. ^ . Archived from the original on February 4, 2016.
  145. ^ Berhow, pp. 201–226
  146. ^ List of all US coastal forts and batteries at the Coast Defense Study Group website
  147. ^ "William Crowninshield Endicott, from Bell, William Gardner (1992), Secretaries of War and Secretaries of the Army, Center of Military History, US Army".
  148. ^ Bauer and Roberts, p. 141
  149. ^ Bauer and Roberts, p. 102
  150. ^ Bauer and Roberts, pp. 101, 133, 141–147
  151. ^ a b Welch, 65–66
  152. ^ Booker, Christopher Brian (2014). . African-Americans & the Presidency. Archived from the original on October 17, 2016. Retrieved November 15, 2016.
  153. ^ Welch, 72
  154. ^ a b Welch, 73
  155. ^ a b c Welch, 70; Nevins, 358–359
  156. ^ Graff, 206–207
  157. ^ a b c d Brodsky, 141–142; Nevins, 228–229
  158. ^ Brodsky, 158; Jeffers, 149
  159. ^ a b Graff, 78
  160. ^ Graff, 79
  161. ^ Jeffers, 170–176; Graff, 78–81; Nevins, 302–308; Welch, 51
  162. ^ Graff, 80–81
  163. ^ William Grimes, "Philippa Foot, Renowned Philosopher, Dies at 90" NY Times October 9, 2010
  164. ^ "Oscar Folsom Cleveland". Geni.com. September 2, 2018. Retrieved February 20, 2019.
  165. ^ Daniel J. Meador, "Lamar to the Court: Last Step to National Reunion" Supreme Court Historical Society Yearbook 1986: 27–47. ISSN 0362-5249
  166. ^ Willard L. King, Melville Weston Fuller – Chief Justice of the United States 1888–1910 (1950)
  167. ^ Nevins, 445–450
  168. ^ a b Graff, 90–91
  169. ^ Tugwell, 166
  170. ^ Nevins, 418–420
  171. ^ Nevins, 423–427
  172. ^ Leip, David. "1888 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 18, 2008., "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved February 18, 2008.
  173. ^ Nevins, 435–439; Jeffers, 220–222
  174. ^ Nevins, 443–449
  175. ^ Nevins, 448
  176. ^ Tugwell, 175
  177. ^ Nevins, 450; Graff, 99–100
  178. ^ Tugwell, 168
  179. ^ Graff, 102–105; Nevins, 465–467
  180. ^ Graff, 104–105; Nevins, 467–468
  181. ^ Nevins, 470–471
  182. ^ Nevins, 468–469
  183. ^ a b Nevins, 470–473
  184. ^ Tugwell, 182
  185. ^ Graff, 105; Nevins, 492–493
  186. ^ William DeGregorio, The Complete Book of U.S. Presidents, Gramercy 1997
  187. ^ "U.S. Senate: Art & History Home > Adlai Ewing Stevenson, 23rd Vice President (1893–1897)". Senate.gov. n.d. Retrieved May 30, 2011.
  188. ^ Nevins, 498
  189. ^ Calhoun, 149
  190. ^ Nevins, 499
  191. ^ Graff, 106–107; Nevins, 505–506
  192. ^ Graff, 108
  193. ^ Tugwell, 184–185
  194. ^ Leip, David. "1892 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 22, 2008., "Electoral College Box Scores 1789–1996". National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved February 22, 2008.
  195. ^ Graff, 114
  196. ^ a b Nevins, 526–528
  197. ^ Nevins, 524–528, 537–540. The vote was 239 to 108.
  198. ^ Tugwell, 192–195
  199. ^ Welch, 126–127
  200. ^ Timberlake, Richard H. (1993). Monetary Policy in the United States: An Intellectual and Institutional History. University of Chicago Press. p. 179. ISBN 978-0-226-80384-5.
  201. ^ Festus P. Summers, William L. Wilson and Tariff Reform: A Biography (1974)
  202. ^ Nevins, 567; the vote was 204 to 140
  203. ^ a b Nevins, 564–566; Jeffers, 285–287
  204. ^ Lambert, 213–215
  205. ^ The income tax component of the Wilson-Gorman Act was partially ruled unconstitutional in 1895. See Pollock v. Farmers' Loan & Trust Co.
  206. ^ Nevins, 577–578
  207. ^ Nevins, 585–587; Jeffers, 288–289
  208. ^ Nevins, 564–588; Jeffers, 285–289
  209. ^ James B. Hedges (1940), "North America", in William L. Langer, ed., An Encyclopedia of World History, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Part V, Section G, Subsection 1c, p. 794.
  210. ^ Congressional Research Service (2004), The Constitution of the United States: Analysis and Interpretation – Analysis of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States to June 28, 2002, Washington: Government Printing Office, "Fifteenth Amendment", "Congressional Enforcement", "Federal Remedial Legislation", p. 2058.
  211. ^ Nevins, 568
  212. ^ a b c d Graff, 117–118; Nevins, 603–605
  213. ^ Graff, 118; Jeffers, 280–281
  214. ^ Nevins, 611–613
  215. ^ Nevins, 614
  216. ^ Nevins, 614–618; Graff, 118–119; Jeffers, 296–297
  217. ^ Nevins, 619–623; Jeffers, 298–302. See also In re Debs.
  218. ^ Nevins, 628
  219. ^ Nevins, 624–628; Jeffers, 304–305; Graff, 120
  220. ^ Francis Lynde Stetson to Cleveland, October 7, 1894, in Allan Nevins, ed. Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850–1908 (1933) p. 369
  221. ^ Richard J. Jensen, The Winning of the Midwest: Social and Political Conflict, 1888–96 (1971) pp. 229–230
  222. ^ a b Nevins, 560
  223. ^ a b Nevins, 549–552; Graff 121–122
  224. ^ a b Nevins, 552–554; Graff, 122
  225. ^ a b Nevins, 558–559
  226. ^ Welch, 174
  227. ^ McWilliams, 25–36
  228. ^ Fareed Zakaria, From wealth to power: The unusual origins of America's world role (Princeton University Press, 1999) pp. 145–146
  229. ^ Graff, 123–125; Nevins, 633–642
  230. ^ Paul Gibb, "Unmasterly Inactivity? Sir Julian Pauncefote, Lord Salisbury, and the Venezuela Boundary Dispute", Diplomacy & Statecraft, Mar 2005, Vol. 16 Issue 1, pp. 23–55
  231. ^ Blake, Nelson M. (1942). "Background of Cleveland's Venezuelan Policy". The American Historical Review. 47 (2): 259–277. doi:10.2307/1841667. JSTOR 1841667.
  232. ^ Graff, 123–125
  233. ^ Nevins, 550, 633–648
  234. ^ Bruce N. Canfield "The Foreign Rifle: U.S. Krag–Jørgensen" American Rifleman October 2010 pp. 86–89, 126, 129
  235. ^ Hanevik, Karl Egil (1998). Norske Militærgeværer etter 1867
  236. ^ Friedman, pp. 35–38
  237. ^ Bauer and Roberts, pp. 162–165
  238. ^ Bauer and Roberts, pp. 102–104, 162–165
  239. ^ a b A Renehan; J C Lowry (July 1995). "The oral tumours of two American presidents: what if they were alive today?". J R Soc Med. 88 (7): 377–383. PMC 1295266. PMID 7562805.
  240. ^ Nevins, 528–529; Graff, 115–116
  241. ^ Nevins, 531–533
  242. ^ Nevins, 529
  243. ^ a b Nevins, 530–531
  244. ^ a b c Nevins, 532–533
  245. ^ Nevins, 533; Graff, 116
  246. ^ a b Keen, William W. (1917). The Surgical Operations on President Cleveland in 1893. G. W. Jacobs & Co. The lump was preserved and is on display at the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia
  247. ^ Hardig WG. (1974). "Oral surgery and the presidents – a century of contrast". J Oral Surg. 32 (7): 490–493. PMID 4601118.
  248. ^ Miller JM. (1961). "Stephen Grover Cleveland". Surg Gynecol Obstet. 113: 524–9. PMID 13770838.
  249. ^ Brooks JJ; Enterline HT; Aponte GE. (1908). "The final diagnosis of President Cleveland's lesion". Trans Stud Coll Physic Philadelphia. 2 (1).
  250. ^ a b c d Nevins, 569–570
  251. ^ a b c Nevins, 570–571
  252. ^ a b Nevins, 572
  253. ^ "Today in History: November 11". loc.gov. Library of Congress.
  254. ^ "Today in History: November 2". loc.gov. Library of Congress.
  255. ^ Timberlake, Richard H. (1993). Monetary Policy in the United States: An Intellectual and Institutional History. University of Chicago Press. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-226-80384-5.
  256. ^ Thatcher, Linda (2016). "Struggle For Statehood Chronology". historytogo.utah.gov. State of Utah. Retrieved March 18, 2020.
  257. ^ Nevins, 684–693
  258. ^ R. Hal Williams, Years of Decision: American Politics in the 1890s (1993)
  259. ^ Graff, 128–129
  260. ^ Leip, David. "1896 Presidential Election Results". Dave Leip's Atlas of U.S. Presidential Elections. Retrieved February 23, 2008.
  261. ^ Nevins, 754–758
  262. ^ Graff, 131–133; Nevins, 730–735
  263. ^ Graff, p. 131; Alexander Leitch, A Princeton Companion, Princeton Univ Press, 1978, "Grover Cleveland June 26, 2013, at the Wayback Machine"
  264. ^ Nevins, 748–751
  265. ^ Ladies Home Journal 22, (October 1905), 7–8
  266. ^ "Dryden Forces Gather to Make Their Fight". The New York Times. November 11, 1906. Retrieved March 4, 2015.
  267. ^ a b Graff, 135–136; Nevins, 762–764
  268. ^ "Grover Cleveland Home: Westland, New Jersey". National Park Service. Retrieved December 18, 2020.
  269. ^ Jeffers, 340; Graff, 135. Nevins makes no mention of these last words.
  270. ^ Roberts, Russell (1995). Discover the Hidden New Jersey. Rutgers University Press. ISBN 978-0-8135-2252-4. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
  271. ^ Kimberly Prothro Williams, Cleveland Park Historic District brochure, D.C. Preservation League, 2001.
  272. ^ See, e.g.. Cleveland Park Historical Society. Archived from the original on November 26, 2011. Retrieved April 8, 2009.
  273. ^ "Buffalo State College Cleveland Hall". Retrieved November 11, 2009.
  274. ^ James D. Myers (1994). "The geology, Geochemistry, and Petrology of the recent Magmatic Phase of the Central and Western Aleutian Arc" (Unpublished manuscript). University of Wyoming. p. 41. (PDF) from the original on September 23, 2015. Retrieved September 9, 2010.
  275. ^ . Presidentsgraves.com. June 24, 1908. Archived from the original on August 1, 2012. Retrieved October 17, 2012.

Further reading

  • Bauer, K. Jack; Roberts, Stephen S. (1991). Register of Ships of the U.S. Navy, 1775–1990: Major Combatants. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-26202-9.
  • Bard, Mitchell. "Ideology and Depression Politics I: Grover Cleveland (1893–1897)" Presidential Studies Quarterly 1985 15(1): 77–88. ISSN 0360-4918
  • Beito, David T. and Beito, Linda Royster. "Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism, 1896–1900". Independent Review 4 (Spring 2000), 555–575.
  • Berhow, Mark A., ed. (2015). American Seacoast Defenses, A Reference Guide, Third Edition. McLean, Virginia: CDSG Press. ISBN 978-0-9748167-3-9.
  • Blake, Nelson M. (1942). "Background of Cleveland's Venezuelan Policy". The American Historical Review. 47 (2): 259–277. doi:10.2307/1841667. JSTOR 1841667.
  • Blodgett, Geoffrey. "Ethno-cultural Realities in Presidential Patronage: Grover Cleveland's Choices" New York History 2000 81(2): 189–210. ISSN 0146-437X when a German American leader called for fewer appointments of Irish Americans, Cleveland instead appointed more Germans
  • Blodgett, Geoffrey. "The Emergence of Grover Cleveland: a Fresh Appraisal" New York History 1992 73(2): 132–168. ISSN 0146-437X covers Cleveland to 1884
  • Blum, John. The National Experience (1993) ISBN 978-0-15-500366-8
  • Brodsky, Alan. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Character, (2000). ISBN 978-0-312-26883-1
  • Calhoun, Charles William (2005). Benjamin Harrison. Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-8050-6952-5.
  • Cleaver, Nick. Grover Cleveland's New Foreign Policy: Arbitration, Neutrality, and the Dawn of American Empire (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).
  • DeSantis, Vincent P. "Grover Cleveland: Another Look". Hayes Historical Journal 1980 3(1–2): 41–50. ISSN 0364-5924, argues his energy, honesty, and devotion to duty—much more than his actual accomplishments established his claim to greatness.
  • Dewey, Davis R. National Problems: 1880–1897 (1907), online edition
  • Doenecke, Justus. "Grover Cleveland and the Enforcement of the Civil Service Act" Hayes Historical Journal 1984 4(3): 44–58. ISSN 0364-5924
  • Dunlap, Annette B. Frank: The Story of Frances Folsom Cleveland, America's Youngest First Lady (2015) excerpt
  • Dupont, Brandon. "'Henceforth, I Must Have No Friends': Evaluating the Economic Policies of Grover Cleveland". Independent Review 18.4 (2014): 559–579. online
  • Faulkner, Harold U. Politics, Reform, and Expansion, 1890–1900 (1959), online edition
  • Ford, Henry Jones. The Cleveland Era: A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics (1921), short overview online
  • Gould, Lewis. America in the Progressive Era, 1890–1914 (2001) ISBN 978-0-582-35671-9
  • Graff, Henry F. Grover Cleveland (2002). ISBN 978-0-8050-6923-5, short biography by scholar
  • Grossman, Mark, Political Corruption in America: An Encyclopedia of Scandals, Power, and Greed (2003) ISBN 978-1-57607-060-4.
  • Haeffele-Balch, Stefanie, and Virgil Henry Storr. "Grover Cleveland against the special interests". The Independent Review 18.4 (2014): 581–596. online
  • Hirsch, Mark D. William C. Whitney, Modern Warwick (1948), biography of key political associate
  • Hoffman, Karen S. "'Going Public' in the Nineteenth Century: Grover Cleveland's Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act" Rhetoric and Public Affairs 2002 5(1): 57–77. in Project MUSE
  • Hoffmann, Charles (1956). "The Depression of the Nineties". The Journal of Economic History. 16 (2): 137–164. doi:10.1017/S0022050700058629. JSTOR 2114113. S2CID 155082457.
  • Hoffmann, Charles. Depression of the nineties; an economic history (1970)
  • Jeffers, H. Paul, An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland (2000), ISBN 978-0-380-97746-8.
  • Kelley, Robert (1966). "Presbyterianism, Jacksonianism and Grover Cleveland". American Quarterly. 18 (4): 615–636. doi:10.2307/2711386. JSTOR 2711386.
  • Klinghard, Daniel P. "Grover Cleveland, William McKinley, and the emergence of the president as party leader". Presidential Studies Quarterly 35.4 (2005): 736–760.
  • Lambert, John R. Arthur Pue Gorman (1953)
  • Lynch, G. Patrick "U.S. Presidential Elections in the Nineteenth Century: Why Culture and the Economy Both Mattered". Polity 35#1 (2002) pp. 29–50. in JSTOR, focus on election of 1884
  • McElroy, Robert. Grover Cleveland, the Man and the Statesman: An Authorized Biography (1923) Vol. I, Vol. II, old fashioned narrative
  • McFarland, Gerald W. Mugwumps, morals, & politics, 1884–1920 (1975) ISBN 978-0-87023-175-9
  • McWilliams, Tennant S., "James H. Blount, the South, and Hawaiian Annexation". Pacific Historical Review 1988 57(1): 25–46. in JSTOR.
  • Merrill, Horace Samuel. Bourbon Leader: Grover Cleveland and the Democratic Party (1957) 228 pp
  • Morgan, H. Wayne. From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics, 1877–1896 (1969).
  • Nevins, Allan. Grover Cleveland: A Study in Courage (1932) Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, the major resource on Cleveland.
  • Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. A History of the United States since the Civil War. Volume V, 1888–1901 (Macmillan, 1937). 791 pp; comprehensive old-fashioned political history
  • Pafford, John M. The Forgotten Conservative: Rediscovering Grover Cleveland (Simon and Schuster, 2013). excerpt
    • Dwight D. Murphey, "The Forgotten Conservative: Rediscovering Grover Cleveland" The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies 38#4 (Winter 2013): 491–500. review
  • Reitano, Joanne R. The Tariff Question in the Gilded Age: The Great Debate of 1888 (1994). ISBN 978-0-271-01035-9.
  • Rhodes, James Ford. History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850: 1877–1896 (1919) online complete; old, factual and heavily political, by winner of Pulitzer Prize
  • Senik, Troy. A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland (Threshold Editions, 2022).
  • Sturgis, Amy H. ed. Presidents from Hayes Through McKinley: Debating the Issues in Pro and Con Primary Documents (Greenwood, 2003).
  • Summers, Mark Wahlgren. Rum, Romanism & Rebellion: The Making of a President, 1884 (2000). ISBN 978-0-8078-4849-4. campaign techniques and issues online edition
  • Tugwell, Rexford Guy, Grover Cleveland Simon & Schuster, Inc. (1968).
  • Walters, Ryan S. Grover Cleveland: The Last Jeffersonian President (2021) excerpt
  • Welch, Richard E. Jr. The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland (1988) ISBN 978-0-7006-0355-8, scholarly study of the presidential years
  • Wilson, Woodrow, Mr. Cleveland as President Atlantic Monthly (March 1897): pp. 289–301 online; Wilson later became president
  • Zakaria, Fareed From Wealth to Power (1999) Princeton University Press. ISBN 978-0-691-01035-9.
Primary sources
  • Cleveland, Grover. The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland (1892) online edition
  • Cleveland, Grover. Presidential Problems. (1904) online edition
  • Nevins, Allan ed. Letters of Grover Cleveland, 1850–1908 (1933)
  • National Democratic Committee (1896). Campaign Text-book of the National Democratic Party. National Democratic committee., handbook of the Gold Democrats, who admired Cleveland
  • Sturgis, Amy H. ed. Presidents from Hayes through McKinley, 1877–1901: Debating the Issues in Pro and Con Primary Documents (2003) online edition
  • Wilson, William L. The Cabinet Diary of William L. Wilson, 1896–1897 (1957) online edition

External links

Letters and speeches

  • Text of a number of Cleveland's speeches at the Miller Center of Public Affairs
  • Finding Aid to the Grover Cleveland Manuscripts, 1867–1908 at the New York State Library. Retrieved May 11, 2016
  • 10 letters written by Grover Cleveland in 1884–86
  • Grover Cleveland Personal Manuscripts

Media coverage

Other

April 30, 2023
grover, cleveland, president, cleveland, redirects, here, ships, named, after, president, cleveland, stephen, march, 1837, june, 1908, american, lawyer, politician, served, 22nd, 24th, president, united, states, from, 1885, 1889, from, 1893, 1897, cleveland, o. President Cleveland redirects here For ships named after him see SS President Cleveland Stephen Grover Cleveland March 18 1837 June 24 1908 was an American lawyer and politician who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897 Cleveland is the only president in U S history to serve non consecutive presidential terms b He won the popular vote in three presidential elections 1884 1888 and 1892 though Benjamin Harrison won the electoral college vote and thus the presidency in 1888 Cleveland was one of two Democrats elected president followed by Woodrow Wilson in 1912 in an era when Republicans dominated the presidency between 1861 to 1933 Grover ClevelandCleveland c 189222nd amp 24th President of the United StatesIn office March 4 1893 March 4 1897Vice PresidentAdlai StevensonPreceded byBenjamin HarrisonSucceeded byWilliam McKinleyIn office March 4 1885 March 4 1889Vice PresidentThomas A Hendricks Mar Nov 1885 None 1885 1889 a Preceded byChester A ArthurSucceeded byBenjamin Harrison28th Governor of New YorkIn office January 1 1883 January 6 1885LieutenantDavid B HillPreceded byAlonzo B CornellSucceeded byDavid B Hill35th Mayor of BuffaloIn office January 2 1882 November 20 1882Preceded byAlexander BrushSucceeded byMarcus M Drake17th Sheriff of Erie CountyIn office January 1 1871 December 31 1873Preceded byCharles DarcySucceeded byJohn B WeberPersonal detailsBornStephen Grover Cleveland 1837 03 18 March 18 1837Caldwell New Jersey U S DiedJune 24 1908 1908 06 24 aged 71 Princeton New Jersey U S Resting placePrinceton CemeteryPolitical partyDemocraticSpouseFrances Folsom m 1886 wbr Children6 including Ruth Esther Richard and FrancisParentsRichard Falley Cleveland Ann NealRelativesRose Cleveland sister Philippa Foot granddaughter OccupationPoliticianlawyerSignatureAlleged recording of Grover Cleveland source source source During his 1892 election campaign The authenticity is in doubt and the recording has also been attributed towards William Jennings Bryan s Cross of Gold speech Recorded 1892 if authentic In 1881 Cleveland was elected mayor of Buffalo and in 1882 he was elected governor of New York He was the leader of the pro business Bourbon Democrats who opposed high tariffs free silver inflation imperialism and subsidies to business farmers or veterans His crusade for political reform and fiscal conservatism made him an icon for American conservatives of the era 1 Cleveland won praise for his honesty self reliance integrity and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism 2 He fought political corruption patronage and bossism As a reformer his prestige led many like minded Republicans called Mugwumps to bolt from the Republican Party s presidential ticket and swing their support to Cleveland during the 1884 election Fifteen months into his first presidential term he married Frances Folsom on June 2 1886 3 As his second administration began disaster hit the nation when the Panic of 1893 produced a severe national depression It ruined his Democratic Party opening the way for a Republican landslide in 1894 and for the agrarian and silverite seizure of the Democratic Party in 1896 The result was a political realignment that ended the Third Party System and launched the Fourth Party System and the Progressive Era 4 Cleveland was a formidable policymaker and he also drew corresponding criticism His intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 to keep the railroads moving angered labor unions nationwide in addition to the party in Illinois his support of the gold standard and opposition to free silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democratic Party 5 Critics complained that Cleveland had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation s economic disasters depressions and strikes in his second term 5 Even so his reputation for probity and good character survived the troubles of his second term Biographer Allan Nevins wrote I n Grover Cleveland the greatness lies in typical rather than unusual qualities He had no endowments that thousands of men do not have He possessed honesty courage firmness independence and common sense But he possessed them to a degree other men do not 6 By the end of his second term public perception showed him to be one of the most unpopular U S presidents and he was by then rejected even by most Democrats 7 Today Cleveland is considered by most historians to have been a successful leader and has been praised for honesty integrity adherence to his morals defying party boundaries and effective leadership Contents 1 Early life 1 1 Childhood and family history 1 2 Education and moving west 1 3 Early career and the Civil War 2 Political career in New York 2 1 Sheriff of Erie County 2 2 Mayor of Buffalo 2 3 Governor of New York 3 Election of 1884 3 1 Nomination for president 3 2 Campaign against Blaine 4 First presidency 1885 1889 4 1 Reform 4 2 Vetoes 4 3 Silver 4 4 Tariffs 4 5 Foreign policy 1885 1889 4 6 Military policy 1885 1889 4 7 Civil rights and immigration 4 8 Native American policy 4 9 Marriage and children 4 10 Administration and Cabinet 4 11 Judicial appointments 5 Election of 1888 and return to private life 1889 1893 5 1 Defeated by Harrison 5 2 Private citizen for four years 6 Election of 1892 6 1 Nomination for president 6 2 Campaign against Harrison 7 Second presidency 1893 1897 7 1 Economic panic and the silver issue 7 2 Tariff reform 7 3 Voting rights 7 4 Labor unrest 7 5 Pullman Strike 7 6 Foreign policy 1893 1897 7 7 Military policy 1893 1897 7 8 Cancer 7 9 Administration and cabinet 7 10 Judicial appointments 7 11 States admitted to the Union 8 1896 election and retirement 1897 1908 9 Death 10 Honors and memorials 11 See also 12 References 12 1 Further reading 13 External linksEarly lifeChildhood and family history Caldwell Presbyterian parsonage birthplace of Grover Cleveland in Caldwell New Jersey Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on March 18 1837 in Caldwell New Jersey to Ann nee Neal and Richard Falley Cleveland 8 Cleveland s father was a Congregational and Presbyterian minister who was originally from Connecticut 9 His mother was from Baltimore and was the daughter of a bookseller 10 On his father s side Cleveland was descended from English ancestors the first of the family having emigrated to Massachusetts from Cleveland England in 1635 11 His father s maternal grandfather Richard Falley Jr fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill and was the son of an immigrant from Guernsey On his mother s side Cleveland was descended from Anglo Irish Protestants and German Quakers from Philadelphia 12 Cleveland was distantly related to General Moses Cleaveland after whom the city of Cleveland Ohio was named 13 Cleveland the fifth of nine children was named Stephen Grover in honor of the first pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Caldwell where his father was pastor at the time He became known as Grover in his adult life 14 In 1841 the Cleveland family moved to Fayetteville New York where Grover spent much of his childhood 15 Neighbors later described him as full of fun and inclined to play pranks 16 and fond of outdoor sports 17 In 1850 Cleveland s father Richard moved his family to Clinton New York accepting a job there as district secretary for the American Home Missionary Society 18 Despite his father s dedication to his missionary work his income was insufficient for the large family Financial conditions forced him to remove Grover from school and place him in a two year mercantile apprenticeship in Fayetteville The experience was valuable and brief and the living conditions quite austere Grover returned to Clinton and his schooling at the completion of the apprentice contract 19 In 1853 missionary work began to take a toll on Richard s health He took a new work assignment in Holland Patent New York near Utica and moved his family once again 20 Shortly after Richard Cleveland died from a gastric ulcer Grover was said to have learned about his father s death from a boy selling newspapers 20 Education and moving west An early undated photograph of Grover Cleveland Cleveland received his elementary education at the Fayetteville Academy and the Clinton Liberal Academy 21 After his father died in 1853 he again left school to help support his family Later that year Cleveland s brother William was hired as a teacher at the New York Institute for the Blind in New York City and William obtained a place for Cleveland as an assistant teacher Cleveland returned home to Holland Patent at the end of 1854 where an elder in his church offered to pay for his college education if he would promise to become a minister Cleveland declined and in 1855 he decided to move west 22 He stopped first in Buffalo New York where his uncle in law Lewis F Allen gave him a clerical job 23 Allen was an important man in Buffalo and he introduced his nephew in law to influential men there including the partners in the law firm of Rogers Bowen and Rogers 24 Millard Fillmore the 13th president of the United States had previously worked for the partnership 25 Cleveland later took a clerkship with the firm began to read the law with them and was admitted to the New York bar in 1859 26 Early career and the Civil War Cleveland worked for the Rogers firm for three years before leaving in 1862 to start his own practice 27 In January 1863 he was appointed assistant district attorney of Erie County 28 With the American Civil War raging Congress passed the Conscription Act of 1863 requiring able bodied men to serve in the army if called upon or else to hire a substitute 26 Cleveland chose the latter course paying 150 equivalent to 3 301 in 2021 to George Benninsky a thirty two year old Polish immigrant to serve in his place 29 Benninsky survived the war 26 As a lawyer Cleveland became known for his single minded concentration and dedication to hard work 30 In 1866 he successfully defended some participants in the Fenian raid working on a pro bono basis free of charge 31 In 1868 Cleveland attracted professional attention for his winning defense of a libel suit against the editor of Buffalo s Commercial Advertiser 32 During this time Cleveland assumed a lifestyle of simplicity taking residence in a plain boarding house He devoted his growing income instead to the support of his mother and younger sisters 33 While his personal quarters were austere Cleveland enjoyed an active social life and the easy going sociability of hotel lobbies and saloons 34 He shunned the circles of higher society of Buffalo in which his uncle in law s family traveled 35 Political career in New YorkSheriff of Erie County Statue of Grover Cleveland outside City Hall in Buffalo New York From his earliest involvement in politics Cleveland aligned with the Democratic Party 36 He had a decided aversion to Republicans John Fremont and Abraham Lincoln and the heads of the Rogers law firm were solid Democrats 37 In 1865 he ran for District Attorney losing narrowly to his friend and roommate Lyman K Bass the Republican nominee 30 In 1870 with the help of friend Oscar Folsom Cleveland secured the Democratic nomination for sheriff of Erie County New York 38 He won the election by a 303 vote margin and took office on January 1 1871 at age 33 39 40 While this new career took him away from the practice of law it was rewarding in other ways the fees were said to yield up to 40 000 equivalent to 904 778 in 2021 over the two year term 38 Cleveland s service as sheriff was unremarkable biographer Rexford Tugwell described the time in office as a waste for Cleveland politically Cleveland was aware of graft in the sheriff s office during his tenure and chose not to confront it 41 A notable incident of his term took place on September 6 1872 when Patrick Morrissey was executed He had been convicted of murdering his mother 42 As sheriff Cleveland was responsible for either personally carrying out the execution or paying a deputy 10 to perform the task 42 In spite of reservations about the hanging Cleveland executed Morrissey himself 42 He hanged another murderer John Gaffney on February 14 1873 43 After his term as sheriff ended Cleveland returned to his law practice opening a firm with his friends Lyman K Bass and Wilson S Bissell 44 Elected to Congress in 1872 Bass did not spend much time at the firm but Cleveland and Bissell soon rose to the top of Buffalo s legal community 45 Up to that point Cleveland s political career had been honorable and unexceptional As biographer Allan Nevins wrote Probably no man in the country on March 4 1881 had less thought than this limited simple sturdy attorney of Buffalo that four years later he would be standing in Washington and taking the oath as President of the United States 46 It was during this period that Cleveland began courting a widow Maria Halpin She later accused him of raping her 47 48 49 It is unclear if Halpin was actually raped by Cleveland as some early reports stated or if their relationship was consensual 50 In March 1876 Cleveland accused Halpin of being an alcoholic and had the child removed from her custody The child was taken to the Protestant Orphan Asylum and Cleveland paid for his stay there 50 Cleveland also had Halpin admitted to the Providence Asylum However Halpin was only kept at the asylum for five days because she was deemed to not be insane 50 51 Cleveland later provided financial support for her to begin her own business outside of Buffalo 50 Although lacking irrefutable evidence that Cleveland was the father 52 the illegitimate child became a campaign issue for the Republican Party in Cleveland s first presidential campaign where they smeared him by claiming that he was immoral and for allegedly acting cruelly by not raising the child himself 52 53 Mayor of Buffalo In the 1870s the municipal government in Buffalo had grown increasingly corrupt with Democratic and Republican political machines cooperating to share the spoils of political office 54 When the Republicans nominated a slate of particularly disreputable machine politicians for the 1881 election Democrats saw an opportunity to gain the votes of disaffected Republicans by nominating a more honest candidate 55 Party leaders approached Cleveland who agreed to run for Mayor of Buffalo provided the party s slate of candidates for other offices was to his liking 56 More notorious politicians were left off the Democratic ticket and he accepted the nomination 56 Cleveland was elected mayor that November with 15 120 votes while his Republican opponent Milton Earl Beebe received 11 528 votes 57 He took office on January 2 1882 58 Cleveland s term as mayor was spent fighting the entrenched interests of the party machines 59 Among the acts that established his reputation was a veto of the street cleaning bill passed by the Common Council 60 The street cleaning contract had been competed for bidding and the Council selected the highest bidder at 422 000 rather than the lowest of 100 000 less because of the political connections of the bidder 60 While this sort of bipartisan graft had previously been tolerated in Buffalo Mayor Cleveland would have none of it His veto message said I regard it as the culmination of a most bare faced impudent and shameless scheme to betray the interests of the people and to worse than squander the public money 61 The Council reversed itself and awarded the contract to the lowest bidder 62 Cleveland also asked the state legislature to form a Commission to develop a plan to improve the sewer system in Buffalo at a much lower cost than previously proposed locally this plan was successfully adopted 63 For this and other actions safeguarding public funds Cleveland began to gain a reputation beyond Erie County as a leader willing to purge government corruption 64 Governor of New York Gubernatorial portrait of Grover Cleveland New York Democratic party officials began to consider Cleveland a possible nominee for governor 65 Daniel Manning a party insider who admired Cleveland s record was instrumental in his candidacy 66 With a split in the state Republican party in 1882 the Democratic party was considered to be at an advantage several men contended for that party s nomination 65 The two leading Democratic candidates were Roswell P Flower and Henry W Slocum Their factions deadlocked and the convention could not agree on a nominee 67 Cleveland in third place on the first ballot picked up support in subsequent votes and emerged as the compromise choice 68 The Republican party remained divided and in the general election Cleveland emerged the victor with 535 318 votes to Republican nominee Charles J Folger s 342 464 69 Cleveland s margin of victory was at the time the largest in a contested New York election the Democrats also picked up seats in both houses of the New York State Legislature 70 Cleveland brought his opposition to needless spending to the governor s office he promptly sent the legislature eight vetoes in his first two months in office 71 The first to attract attention was his veto of a bill to reduce the fares on New York City elevated trains to five cents 72 The bill had broad support because the trains owner Jay Gould was unpopular and his fare increases were widely denounced 73 Cleveland however saw the bill as unjust Gould had taken over the railroads when they were failing and had made the system solvent again 74 Moreover Cleveland believed that altering Gould s franchise would violate the Contract Clause of the federal Constitution 74 Despite the initial popularity of the fare reduction bill the newspapers praised Cleveland s veto 74 Theodore Roosevelt then a member of the Assembly had reluctantly voted for the bill with the intention of holding railroad barons accountable 75 After the veto Roosevelt and other legislators reversed their position and Cleveland s veto was sustained 75 Cleveland s defiance of political corruption won him popular acclaim Yet it also brought the enmity of New York City s influential Tammany Hall organization and its boss John Kelly 76 Tammany Hall and Kelly had disapproved of Cleveland s nomination for governor and their resistance intensified after Cleveland openly opposed and prevented the re election of Thomas F Grady their point man in the State Senate 77 Cleveland also steadfastly opposed other Tammany nominees as well as bills passed as a result of their deal making 78 The loss of Tammany s support was offset by the support of Theodore Roosevelt and other reform minded Republicans who helped Cleveland pass several laws to reform municipal governments 79 Election of 1884Main articles 1884 United States presidential election and Grover Cleveland 1884 presidential campaign Nomination for president Main article 1884 Democratic National Convention An anti Blaine cartoon presents him as the tattooed man with many indelible scandals An anti Cleveland cartoon highlights the Halpin scandal In June 1884 the Republican Party convened their nomination convention in Chicago selecting former U S House Speaker James G Blaine of Maine as their nominee for president Blaine s nomination alienated many Republicans who viewed Blaine as ambitious and immoral 80 The Republican standard bearer was weakened by alienating the Mugwumps and the Conkling faction recently disenfranchised by President Chester Arthur 81 Democratic party leaders believed the Republicans choice gave them an opportunity to win the White House for the first time since 1856 if the right candidate could be found 80 Among the Democrats Samuel J Tilden was the initial front runner having been the party s nominee in the contested election of 1876 82 After Tilden declined a nomination due to his poor health his supporters shifted to several other contenders 82 Cleveland was among the leaders in early support and Thomas F Bayard of Delaware Allen G Thurman of Ohio Samuel Freeman Miller of Iowa and Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts also had considerable followings along with various favorite sons 82 Each of the other candidates had hindrances to his nomination Bayard had spoken in favor of secession in 1861 making him unacceptable to Northerners Butler conversely was reviled throughout the Southern United States for his actions during the Civil War Thurman was generally well liked but was growing old and infirm and his views on the silver question were uncertain 83 Cleveland too had detractors Tammany remained opposed to him but the nature of his enemies made him still more friends 84 Cleveland led on the first ballot with 392 votes out of 820 85 On the second ballot Tammany threw its support behind Butler but the rest of the delegates shifted to Cleveland who won 86 Thomas A Hendricks of Indiana was selected as his running mate 86 Campaign against Blaine Corruption in politics was the central issue in 1884 Blaine had over the span of his career been involved in several questionable deals 87 Cleveland s reputation as an opponent of corruption proved the Democrats strongest asset 88 William C Hudson created Cleveland s contextual campaign slogan A public office is a public trust 89 Reform minded Republicans called Mugwumps denounced Blaine as corrupt and flocked to Cleveland 90 The Mugwumps including such men as Carl Schurz and Henry Ward Beecher were more concerned with morality than with party and felt Cleveland was a kindred soul who would promote civil service reform and fight for efficiency in government 90 At the same time that the Democrats gained support from the Mugwumps they lost some blue collar workers to the Greenback Labor party led by ex Democrat Benjamin Butler 91 In general Cleveland abided by the precedent of minimizing presidential campaign travel and speechmaking Blaine became one of the first to break with that tradition 92 The campaign focused on the candidates moral standards as each side cast aspersions on their opponents Cleveland s supporters rehashed the old allegations that Blaine had corruptly influenced legislation in favor of the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad and the Union Pacific Railway later profiting on the sale of bonds he owned in both companies 93 Although the stories of Blaine s favors to the railroads had made the rounds eight years earlier this time Blaine s correspondence was discovered making his earlier denials less plausible 93 On some of the most damaging correspondence Blaine had written Burn this letter giving Democrats the last line to their rallying cry Blaine Blaine James G Blaine the continental liar from the state of Maine Burn this letter 94 Regarding Cleveland commentator Jeff Jacoby notes that Not since George Washington had a candidate for President been so renowned for his rectitude 95 But the Republicans found a refutation buried in Cleveland s past Aided by the sermons of Reverend George H Ball a minister from Buffalo they made public the allegation that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child while he was a lawyer there 96 and their rallies soon included the chant Ma Ma where s my Pa 97 When confronted with the scandal Cleveland immediately instructed his supporters to Above all tell the truth 53 Cleveland admitted to paying child support in 1874 to Maria Crofts Halpin the woman who asserted he had fathered her son Oscar Folsom Cleveland and he assumed responsibility 53 Shortly before the 1884 election the Republican media published an affidavit from Halpin in which she stated that until she met Cleveland her life was pure and spotless and there is not and never was a doubt as to the paternity of our child and the attempt of Grover Cleveland or his friends to couple the name of Oscar Folsom or any one else with that boy for that purpose is simply infamous and false 98 Results of the 1884 election The electoral votes of closely contested New York New Jersey Indiana and Connecticut would determine the election 99 In New York the Tammany Democrats decided that they would gain more from supporting a Democrat they disliked than a Republican who would do nothing for them 100 Blaine hoped that he would have more support from Irish Americans than Republicans typically did while the Irish were mainly a Democratic constituency in the 19th century Blaine s mother was Irish Catholic and he had been supportive of the Irish National Land League while he was Secretary of State 101 The Irish a significant group in three of the swing states did appear inclined to support Blaine until a Republican Samuel D Burchard gave a speech pivotal for the Democrats denouncing them as the party of Rum Romanism and Rebellion 102 The Democrats spread the word of this implied Catholic insult on the eve of the election They also blistered Blaine for attending a banquet with some of New York City s wealthiest men 103 After the votes were counted Cleveland narrowly won all four of the swing states including New York by 1 200 votes 104 While the popular vote total was close with Cleveland winning by just one quarter of a percent the electoral votes gave Cleveland a majority of 219 182 104 Following the electoral victory the Ma Ma attack phrase gained a classic riposte Gone to the White House Ha Ha Ha 105 First presidency 1885 1889 Main article Presidencies of Grover Cleveland First presidency 1885 1889 Reform Cleveland portrayed as a tariff reformer Soon after taking office Cleveland was faced with the task of filling all the government jobs for which the president had the power of appointment These jobs were typically filled under the spoils system but Cleveland announced that he would not fire any Republican who was doing his job well and would not appoint anyone solely on the basis of party service 106 He also used his appointment powers to reduce the number of federal employees as many departments had become bloated with political time servers 107 Later in his term as his fellow Democrats chafed at being excluded from the spoils Cleveland began to replace more of the partisan Republican officeholders with Democrats 108 this was especially the case with policymaking positions 109 While some of his decisions were influenced by party concerns more of Cleveland s appointments were decided by merit alone than was the case in his predecessors administrations 110 Cleveland also reformed other parts of the government In 1887 he signed an act creating the Interstate Commerce Commission 111 He and Secretary of the Navy William C Whitney undertook to modernize the navy and canceled construction contracts that had resulted in inferior ships 112 Cleveland angered railroad investors by ordering an investigation of western lands they held by government grant 113 Secretary of the Interior Lucius Q C Lamar charged that the rights of way for this land must be returned to the public because the railroads failed to extend their lines according to agreements 113 The lands were forfeited resulting in the return of approximately 81 000 000 acres 330 000 km2 113 Cleveland was the first Democratic president subject to the Tenure of Office Act which originated in 1867 the act purported to require the Senate to approve the dismissal of any presidential appointee who was originally subject to its advice and consent Cleveland objected to the act in principle and his steadfast refusal to abide by it prompted its fall into disfavor and led to its ultimate repeal in 1887 114 Vetoes BEP engraved portrait of Cleveland as president Cleveland faced a Republican Senate and often resorted to using his veto powers 115 He vetoed hundreds of private pension bills for American Civil War veterans believing that if their pensions requests had already been rejected by the Pension Bureau Congress should not attempt to override that decision 116 When Congress pressured by the Grand Army of the Republic passed a bill granting pensions for disabilities not caused by military service Cleveland also vetoed that 117 Cleveland used the veto far more often than any president up to that time 118 In 1887 Cleveland issued his most well known veto that of the Texas Seed Bill 119 After a drought had ruined crops in several Texas counties Congress appropriated 100 000 equivalent to 3 015 926 in 2021 to purchase seed grain for farmers there 119 Cleveland vetoed the expenditure In his veto message he espoused a theory of limited government I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should I think be steadfastly resisted to the end that the lesson should be constantly enforced that though the people support the government the government should not support the people The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow citizens in misfortune This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character while it prevents the indulgence among our people of that kindly sentiment and conduct which strengthens the bonds of a common brotherhood 120 Silver One of the most volatile issues of the 1880s was whether the currency should be backed by gold and silver or by gold alone 121 The issue cut across party lines with western Republicans and southern Democrats joining in the call for the free coinage of silver and both parties representatives in the northeast holding firm for the gold standard 122 Because silver was worth less than its legal equivalent in gold taxpayers paid their government bills in silver while international creditors demanded payment in gold resulting in a depletion of the nation s gold supply 122 Cleveland and Treasury Secretary Daniel Manning stood firmly on the side of the gold standard and tried to reduce the amount of silver that the government was required to coin under the Bland Allison Act of 1878 123 Cleveland unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to repeal this law before he was inaugurated 124 Angered Westerners and Southerners advocated for cheap money to help their poorer constituents 125 In reply one of the foremost silverites Richard P Bland introduced a bill in 1886 that would require the government to coin unlimited amounts of silver inflating the then deflating currency 126 While Bland s bill was defeated so was a bill the administration favored that would repeal any silver coinage requirement 126 The result was a retention of the status quo and a postponement of the resolution of the free silver issue 127 Tariffs When we consider that the theory of our institutions guarantees to every citizen the full enjoyment of all the fruits of his industry and enterprise with only such deduction as may be his share toward the careful and economical maintenance of the Government which protects him it is plain that the exaction of more than this is indefensible extortion and a culpable betrayal of American fairness and justice The public Treasury which should only exist as a conduit conveying the people s tribute to its legitimate objects of expenditure becomes a hoarding place for money needlessly withdrawn from trade and the people s use thus crippling our national energies suspending our country s development preventing investment in productive enterprise threatening financial disturbance and inviting schemes of public plunder Cleveland s third annual message to Congress December 6 1887 128 Another contentious financial issue at the time was the protective tariff These tariffs had been implemented as a temporary measure during the civil war to protect American industrial interests but remained in place after the war 129 While it had not been a central point in his campaign Cleveland s opinion on the tariff was that of most Democrats that the tariff ought to be reduced 130 Republicans generally favored a high tariff to protect American industries 130 American tariffs had been high since the Civil War and by the 1880s the tariff brought in so much revenue that the government was running a surplus 131 In 1886 a bill to reduce the tariff was narrowly defeated in the House 132 The tariff issue was emphasized in the Congressional elections that year and the forces of protectionism increased their numbers in the Congress but Cleveland continued to advocate tariff reform 133 As the surplus grew Cleveland and the reformers called for a tariff for revenue only 134 His message to Congress in 1887 quoted at right highlighted the injustice of taking more money from the people than the government needed to pay its operating expenses 135 Republicans as well as protectionist northern Democrats like Samuel J Randall believed that American industries would fail without high tariffs and they continued to fight reform efforts 136 Roger Q Mills chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee proposed a bill to reduce the tariff from about 47 to about 40 137 After significant exertions by Cleveland and his allies the bill passed the House 137 The Republican Senate failed to come to an agreement with the Democratic House and the bill died in the conference committee Dispute over the tariff persisted into the 1888 presidential election Foreign policy 1885 1889 Cleveland was a committed non interventionist who had campaigned in opposition to expansion and imperialism He refused to promote the previous administration s Nicaragua canal treaty and generally was less of an expansionist in foreign relations 138 Cleveland s Secretary of State Thomas F Bayard negotiated with Joseph Chamberlain of the United Kingdom over fishing rights in the waters off Canada and struck a conciliatory note despite the opposition of New England s Republican Senators 139 Cleveland also withdrew from Senate consideration of the Berlin Conference treaty which guaranteed an open door for U S interests in the Congo 140 Military policy 1885 1889 Cleveland s military policy emphasized self defense and modernization In 1885 Cleveland appointed the Board of Fortifications under Secretary of War William C Endicott to recommend a new coastal fortification system for the United States 141 142 No improvements to US coastal defenses had been made since the late 1870s 143 144 The Board s 1886 report recommended a massive 127 million construction program equivalent to 3 8 billion in 2021 at 29 harbors and river estuaries to include new breech loading rifled guns mortars and naval minefields The Board and the program are usually called the Endicott Board and the Endicott Program Most of the Board s recommendations were implemented and by 1910 27 locations were defended by over 70 forts 145 146 Many of the weapons remained in place until scrapped in World War II as they were replaced with new defenses Endicott also proposed to Congress a system of examinations for Army officer promotions 147 For the Navy the Cleveland administration spearheaded by Secretary of the Navy William Collins Whitney moved towards modernization although no ships were constructed that could match the best European warships Although completion of the four steel hulled warships begun under the previous administration was delayed due to a corruption investigation and subsequent bankruptcy of their building yard these ships were completed in a timely manner in naval shipyards once the investigation was over 148 Sixteen additional steel hulled warships were ordered by the end of 1888 these ships later proved vital in the Spanish American War of 1898 and many served in World War I These ships included the second class battleships Maine and Texas designed to match modern armored ships recently acquired by South American countries from Europe such as the Brazilian battleship Riachuelo 149 Eleven protected cruisers including the famous Olympia one armored cruiser and one monitor were also ordered along with the experimental cruiser Vesuvius 150 Civil rights and immigration Cleveland like a growing number of Northerners and nearly all white Southerners saw Reconstruction as a failed experiment and was reluctant to use federal power to enforce the 15th Amendment of the U S Constitution which guaranteed voting rights to African Americans 151 Though Cleveland appointed no black Americans to patronage jobs he allowed Frederick Douglass to continue in his post as recorder of deeds in Washington D C and appointed another black man James Campbell Matthews a former New York judge to replace Douglass upon his resignation 151 His decision to replace Douglass with a black man was met with outrage but Cleveland claimed to have known Matthews personally 152 Although Cleveland had condemned the outrages against Chinese immigrants he believed that Chinese immigrants were unwilling to assimilate into white society 153 Secretary of State Thomas F Bayard negotiated an extension to the Chinese Exclusion Act and Cleveland lobbied the Congress to pass the Scott Act written by Congressman William Lawrence Scott which prevented the return of Chinese immigrants who left the United States 154 The Scott Act easily passed both houses of Congress and Cleveland signed it into law on October 1 1888 154 Native American policy Henry L Dawes wrote the Dawes Act which Cleveland signed into law Cleveland viewed Native Americans as wards of the state saying in his first inaugural address that t his guardianship involves on our part efforts for the improvement of their condition and enforcement of their rights 155 He encouraged the idea of cultural assimilation pushing for the passage of the Dawes Act which provided for the distribution of Indian lands to individual members of tribes rather than having them continued to be held in trust for the tribes by the federal government 155 While a conference of Native leaders endorsed the act in practice the majority of Native Americans disapproved of it 156 Cleveland believed the Dawes Act would lift Native Americans out of poverty and encourage their assimilation into white society It ultimately weakened the tribal governments and allowed individual Indians to sell land and keep the money 155 In the month before Cleveland s 1885 inauguration President Arthur opened four million acres of Winnebago and Crow Creek Indian lands in the Dakota Territory to white settlement by executive order 157 Tens of thousands of settlers gathered at the border of these lands and prepared to take possession of them 157 Cleveland believed Arthur s order to be in violation of treaties with the tribes and rescinded it on April 17 of that year ordering the settlers out of the territory 157 Cleveland sent in eighteen companies of Army troops to enforce the treaties and ordered General Philip Sheridan at the time Commanding General of the U S Army to investigate the matter 157 Marriage and children Main article Wedding of Grover Cleveland and Frances Folsom Frances Folsom Cleveland circa 1886 Cleveland was 47 years old when he entered the White House as a bachelor His sister Rose Cleveland joined him acting as hostess for the first two years of his administration 158 Unlike the previous bachelor president James Buchanan Cleveland did not remain a bachelor for long In 1885 the daughter of Cleveland s friend Oscar Folsom visited him in Washington 159 Frances Folsom was a student at Wells College When she returned to school President Cleveland received her mother s permission to correspond with her and they were soon engaged to be married 159 The wedding occurred on June 2 1886 in the Blue Room at the White House Cleveland was 49 years old at the time Frances was 21 160 She remains the youngest wife of a sitting president He was the second president to wed while in office c and remains the only president to marry in the White House This marriage was unusual because Cleveland was the executor of Oscar Folsom s estate and had supervised Frances s upbringing after her father s death nevertheless the public took no exception to the match 161 At 21 years Frances Folsom Cleveland was the youngest First Lady in history and soon became popular for her warm personality 162 The Clevelands had five children Ruth 1891 1904 Esther 1893 1980 Marion 1895 1977 Richard 1897 1974 and Francis 1903 1995 British philosopher Philippa Foot 1920 2010 was their granddaughter 163 Esther was born in the White House on September 9 1893 She is the only child of a President to have been born there Cleveland also claimed paternity of an additional child named Oscar Folsom Cleveland with Maria Crofts Halpin 164 Administration and Cabinet Cleveland s first Cabinet Front row left to right Thomas F Bayard Cleveland Daniel Manning Lucius Q C Lamar Back row left to right William F Vilas William C Whitney William C Endicott Augustus H Garland The First Cleveland cabinetOfficeNameTermPresidentGrover Cleveland1885 1889Vice PresidentThomas A Hendricks1885None1885 1889Secretary of StateThomas F Bayard1885 1889Secretary of the TreasuryDaniel Manning1885 1887Charles S Fairchild1887 1889Secretary of WarWilliam Crowninshield Endicott1885 1889Attorney GeneralAugustus Hill Garland1885 1889Postmaster GeneralWilliam Freeman Vilas1885 1888Donald M Dickinson1888 1889Secretary of the NavyWilliam Collins Whitney1885 1889Secretary of the InteriorLucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar1885 1888William Freeman Vilas1888 1889Secretary of AgricultureNorman Jay Coleman1889Judicial appointments Main article List of federal judges appointed by Grover Cleveland Chief Justice Melville Fuller During his first term Cleveland successfully nominated two justices to the Supreme Court of the United States The first Lucius Q C Lamar was a former Mississippi senator who served in Cleveland s Cabinet as Interior Secretary When William Burnham Woods died Cleveland nominated Lamar to his seat in late 1887 While Lamar had been well liked as a senator his service under the Confederacy two decades earlier caused many Republicans to vote against him Lamar s nomination was confirmed by the narrow margin of 32 to 28 165 Chief Justice Morrison Waite died a few months later and Cleveland nominated Melville Fuller to fill his seat on April 30 1888 Fuller accepted He had previously declined Cleveland s nomination to the Civil Service Commission preferring his Chicago law practice The Senate Judiciary Committee spent several months examining the little known nominee before the Senate confirmed the nomination 41 to 20 166 167 Cleveland nominated 41 lower federal court judges in addition to his four Supreme Court justices These included two judges to the United States circuit courts nine judges to the United States Courts of Appeals and 30 judges to the United States district courts Because Cleveland served terms both before and after Congress eliminated the circuit courts in favor of the Courts of Appeals he is one of only two presidents to have appointed judges to both bodies The other Benjamin Harrison was in office at the time that the change was made Thus all of Cleveland s appointments to the circuit courts were made in his first term and all of his appointments to the Courts of Appeals were made in his second Election of 1888 and return to private life 1889 1893 Defeated by Harrison Main articles 1888 United States presidential election and Grover Cleveland 1888 presidential campaign Poster President Cleveland and Allen G Thurman of Ohio 1888 Results of the 1888 Election The Republicans nominated Benjamin Harrison the former U S Senator from Indiana for president and Levi P Morton of New York for vice president Cleveland was renominated at the Democratic convention in St Louis 168 Following Vice President Thomas A Hendricks death in 1885 the Democrats chose Allen G Thurman of Ohio to be Cleveland s new running mate 168 The Republicans gained the upper hand in the campaign as Cleveland s campaign was poorly managed by Calvin S Brice and William H Barnum whereas Harrison had engaged more aggressive fundraisers and tacticians in Matt Quay and John Wanamaker 169 The Republicans campaigned heavily on the tariff issue turning out protectionist voters in the important industrial states of the North 170 Further the Democrats in New York were divided over the gubernatorial candidacy of David B Hill weakening Cleveland s support in that swing state 171 A letter from the British ambassador supporting Cleveland caused a scandal that cost Cleveland votes in New York As in 1884 the election focused on the swing states of New York New Jersey Connecticut and Indiana But unlike that year when Cleveland had triumphed in all four in 1888 he won only two losing his home state of New York by 14 373 votes Cleveland won a plurality of the popular vote 48 6 percent vs 47 8 percent for Harrison but Harrison won the Electoral College vote easily 233 168 172 The Republicans won Indiana largely as the result of a fraudulent voting practice known as Blocks of Five 173 Cleveland continued his duties diligently until the end of the term and began to look forward to returning to private life 174 Private citizen for four years As Frances Cleveland left the White House she told a staff member Now Jerry I want you to take good care of all the furniture and ornaments in the house for I want to find everything just as it is now when we come back again When asked when she would return she responded We are coming back four years from today 175 In the meantime the Clevelands moved to New York City where Cleveland took a position with the law firm of Bangs Stetson Tracy and MacVeigh This affiliation was more of an office sharing arrangement though quite compatible Cleveland s law practice brought only a moderate income perhaps because Cleveland spent considerable time at the couple s vacation home Gray Gables at Buzzard Bay where fishing became his obsession 176 While they lived in New York the Clevelands first child Ruth was born in 1891 177 The Harrison administration worked with Congress to pass the McKinley Tariff an aggressively protectionist measure and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act which increased money backed by silver 178 these were among policies Cleveland deplored as dangerous to the nation s financial health 179 At first he refrained from criticizing his successor but by 1891 Cleveland felt compelled to speak out addressing his concerns in an open letter to a meeting of reformers in New York 180 The silver letter thrust Cleveland s name back into the spotlight just as the 1892 election was approaching 181 Election of 1892Main articles 1892 United States presidential election and Grover Cleveland 1892 presidential campaign Nomination for president Main article 1892 Democratic National Convention Cleveland s enduring reputation as chief executive and his recent pronouncements on the monetary issues made him a leading contender for the Democratic nomination 182 His leading opponent was David B Hill a Senator for New York 183 Hill united the anti Cleveland elements of the Democratic party silverites protectionists and Tammany Hall but was unable to create a coalition large enough to deny Cleveland the nomination 183 Despite some desperate maneuvering by Hill Cleveland was nominated on the first ballot at the party convention in Chicago 184 For vice president the Democrats chose to balance the ticket with Adlai E Stevenson of Illinois a silverite 185 Although the Cleveland forces preferred Isaac P Gray of Indiana for vice president they accepted the convention favorite 186 As a supporter of greenbacks and free silver to inflate the currency and alleviate economic distress in the rural districts Stevenson balanced the otherwise hard money gold standard ticket headed by Cleveland 187 Campaign against Harrison Results of the 1892 election The Republicans re nominated President Harrison making the 1892 election a rematch of the one four years earlier Unlike the turbulent and controversial elections of 1876 1884 and 1888 the 1892 election was according to Cleveland biographer Allan Nevins the cleanest quietest and most creditable in the memory of the post war generation 188 in part because Harrison s wife Caroline was dying of tuberculosis 189 Harrison did not personally campaign at all Following Caroline Harrison s death on October 25 two weeks before the national election Cleveland and all of the other candidates stopped campaigning thus making Election Day a somber and quiet event for the whole country as well as the candidates The issue of the tariff had worked to the Republicans advantage in 1888 Now however the legislative revisions of the past four years had made imported goods so expensive that by 1892 many voters favored tariff reform and were skeptical of big business 190 Many Westerners traditionally Republican voters defected to James B Weaver the candidate of the new Populist Party Weaver promised free silver generous veterans pensions and an eight hour day 191 The Tammany Hall Democrats adhered to the national ticket allowing a united Democratic party to carry New York 192 At the campaign s end many Populists and labor supporters endorsed Cleveland after an attempt by the Carnegie Corporation to break the union during the Homestead strike in Pittsburgh and after a similar conflict between big business and labor at the Tennessee Coal and Iron Co 193 The final result was a victory for Cleveland by wide margins in both the popular and electoral votes and it was Cleveland s third consecutive popular vote plurality 194 Second presidency 1893 1897 Main article Presidencies of Grover Cleveland Second presidency 1893 1897 Economic panic and the silver issue Caricature of Cleveland as anti silver Shortly after Cleveland s second term began the Panic of 1893 struck the stock market and he soon faced an acute economic depression 195 The panic was worsened by the acute shortage of gold that resulted from the increased coinage of silver and Cleveland called Congress into special session to deal with the problem 196 The debate over the coinage was as heated as ever and the effects of the panic had driven more moderates to support repealing the coinage provisions of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act 196 Even so the silverites rallied their following at a convention in Chicago and the House of Representatives debated for fifteen weeks before passing the repeal by a considerable margin 197 In the Senate the repeal of silver coinage was equally contentious Cleveland forced against his better judgment to lobby the Congress for repeal convinced enough Democrats and along with eastern Republicans they formed a 48 37 majority for repeal 198 Depletion of the Treasury s gold reserves continued at a lesser rate and subsequent bond issues replenished supplies of gold 199 At the time the repeal seemed a minor setback to silverites but it marked the beginning of the end of silver as a basis for American currency 200 Tariff reform Cleveland s humiliation by Gorman and the sugar trust Having succeeded in reversing the Harrison administration s silver policy Cleveland sought next to reverse the effects of the McKinley Tariff The Wilson Gorman Tariff Act was introduced by West Virginian Representative William L Wilson in December 1893 201 After lengthy debate the bill passed the House by a considerable margin 202 The bill proposed moderate downward revisions in the tariff especially on raw materials 203 The shortfall in revenue was to be made up by an income tax of two percent on income above 4 000 equivalent to 120 637 in 2021 203 The bill was next considered in the Senate where it faced stronger opposition from key Democrats led by Arthur Pue Gorman of Maryland who insisted on more protection for their states industries than the Wilson bill allowed 204 The bill passed the Senate with more than 600 amendments attached that nullified most of the reforms 205 The Sugar Trust in particular lobbied for changes that favored it at the expense of the consumer 206 Cleveland was outraged with the final bill and denounced it as a disgraceful product of the control of the Senate by trusts and business interests 207 Even so he believed it was an improvement over the McKinley tariff and allowed it to become law without his signature 208 Voting rights In 1892 Cleveland had campaigned against the Lodge Bill 209 which would have strengthened voting rights protections through the appointing of federal supervisors of congressional elections upon a petition from the citizens of any district The Enforcement Act of 1871 had provided for a detailed federal overseeing of the electoral process from registration to the certification of returns Cleveland succeeded in ushering in the 1894 repeal of this law ch 25 28 Stat 36 210 The pendulum thus swung from stronger attempts to protect voting rights to the repealing of voting rights protections this in turn led to unsuccessful attempts to have the federal courts protect voting rights in Giles v Harris 189 U S 475 1903 and Giles v Teasley 193 U S 146 1904 Labor unrest John Tyler Morgan Senator from Alabama opposed Cleveland on free silver the tariff and the Hawaii treaty saying of Cleveland that I hate the ground that man walks on 211 The Panic of 1893 had damaged labor conditions across the United States and the victory of anti silver legislation worsened the mood of western laborers 212 A group of workingmen led by Jacob S Coxey began to march east toward Washington D C to protest Cleveland s policies 212 This group known as Coxey s Army agitated in favor of a national roads program to give jobs to workingmen and a weakened currency to help farmers pay their debts 212 By the time they reached Washington only a few hundred remained and when they were arrested the next day for walking on the lawn of the United States Capitol the group scattered 212 Even though Coxey s Army may not have been a threat to the government it signaled a growing dissatisfaction in the West with Eastern monetary policies 213 Pullman Strike Main article Pullman Strike The Pullman Strike had a significantly greater impact than Coxey s Army A strike began against the Pullman Company over low wages and twelve hour workdays and sympathy strikes led by American Railway Union leader Eugene V Debs soon followed 214 By June 1894 125 000 railroad workers were on strike paralyzing the nation s commerce 215 Because the railroads carried the mail and because several of the affected lines were in federal receivership Cleveland believed a federal solution was appropriate 216 Cleveland obtained an injunction in federal court and when the strikers refused to obey it he sent federal troops into Chicago and 20 other rail centers 217 If it takes the entire army and navy of the United States to deliver a postcard in Chicago he proclaimed that card will be delivered 218 Most governors supported Cleveland except Democrat John P Altgeld of Illinois who became his bitter foe in 1896 Leading newspapers of both parties applauded Cleveland s actions but the use of troops hardened the attitude of organized labor toward his administration 219 Just before the 1894 election Cleveland was warned by Francis Lynde Stetson an advisor We are on the eve of a very dark night unless a return of commercial prosperity relieves popular discontent with what they believe is Democratic incompetence to make laws and consequently discontent with Democratic Administrations anywhere and everywhere 220 The warning was appropriate for in the Congressional elections Republicans won their biggest landslide in decades taking full control of the House while the Populists lost most of their support Cleveland s factional enemies gained control of the Democratic Party in state after state including full control in Illinois and Michigan and made major gains in Ohio Indiana Iowa and other states Wisconsin and Massachusetts were two of the few states that remained under the control of Cleveland s allies The Democratic opposition were close to controlling two thirds of the vote at the 1896 national convention which they needed to nominate their own candidate They failed for lack of unity and a national leader as Illinois governor John Peter Altgeld had been born in Germany and was ineligible to be nominated for president 221 Foreign policy 1893 1897 Further information Venezuela Crisis of 1895 I suppose that right and justice should determine the path to be followed in treating this subject If national honesty is to be disregarded and a desire for territorial expansion or dissatisfaction with a form of government not our own ought to regulate our conduct I have entirely misapprehended the mission and character of our government and the behavior which the conscience of the people demands of their public servants Cleveland s message to Congress on the Hawaiian question December 18 1893 222 His Little Hawaiian Game Checkmated 1894 When Cleveland took office he faced the question of Hawaiian annexation In his first term he had supported free trade with Hawai i and accepted an amendment that gave the United States a coaling and naval station in Pearl Harbor 140 In the intervening four years Honolulu businessmen of European and American ancestry had denounced Queen Liliuokalani as a tyrant who rejected constitutional government In early 1893 they overthrew her set up a republican government under Sanford B Dole and sought to join the United States 223 The Harrison administration had quickly agreed with representatives of the new government on a treaty of annexation and submitted it to the Senate for approval 223 Five days after taking office on March 9 1893 Cleveland withdrew the treaty from the Senate and sent former Congressman James Henderson Blount to Hawai i to investigate the conditions there 224 Cleveland agreed with Blount s report which found the old native populace to be opposed to annexation 224 Liliuokalani initially refused to grant amnesty as a condition of her reinstatement saying that she would either execute or banish the current government in Honolulu Dole s government was in full control and rejected her demands 225 By December 1893 the matter was still unresolved and Cleveland referred the issue to Congress 225 In his message to Congress Cleveland rejected the idea of annexation and encouraged the Congress to continue the American tradition of non intervention see excerpt at right 222 The Senate under Democratic control but opposed to Cleveland commissioned and produced the Morgan Report which contradicted Blount s findings and found the overthrow was a completely internal affair 226 Cleveland dropped all talk of reinstating the Queen and went on to recognize and maintain diplomatic relations with the new Republic of Hawaii 227 Closer to home Cleveland adopted a broad interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine that not only prohibited new European colonies but also declared an American national interest in any matter of substance within the hemisphere 228 When Britain and Venezuela disagreed over the boundary between Venezuela and the colony of British Guiana Cleveland and Secretary of State Richard Olney protested 229 British Prime Minister Lord Salisbury and the British ambassador to Washington Julian Pauncefote misjudged how important the dispute was to Washington and to the anti British Irish Catholic element in Cleveland s Democratic Party They prolonged the crisis before accepting the American demand for arbitration 230 231 An international tribunal in 1899 awarded the bulk of the disputed territory to British Guiana 232 But by standing with a Latin American nation against the encroachment of a colonial power Cleveland improved relations with Latin America The cordial manner in which the arbitration was conducted also strengthened relations with Britain and encouraged the major powers to consider arbitration as a way to settle their disputes 233 Military policy 1893 1897 The second Cleveland administration was as committed to military modernization as the first and ordered the first ships of a navy capable of offensive action Construction continued on the Endicott program of coastal fortifications begun under Cleveland s first administration 141 142 The adoption of the Krag Jorgensen rifle the US Army s first bolt action repeating rifle was finalized 234 235 In 1895 1896 Secretary of the Navy Hilary A Herbert having recently adopted the aggressive naval strategy advocated by Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan successfully proposed ordering five battleships the Kearsarge and Illinois classes and sixteen torpedo boats 236 237 Completion of these ships nearly doubled the Navy s battleships and created a new torpedo boat force which previously had only two boats The battleships and seven of the torpedo boats were not completed until 1899 1901 after the Spanish American War 238 Cancer Official portrait of President Cleveland by Eastman Johnson c 1891 In the midst of the fight for repeal of free silver coinage in 1893 Cleveland sought the advice of the White House doctor Dr O Reilly about soreness on the roof of his mouth and a crater like edge ulcer with a granulated surface on the left side of Cleveland s hard palate Clinical samples were sent anonymously to the Army Medical Museum the diagnosis was an epithelioma rather than a malignant cancer 239 Cleveland decided to have surgery secretly to avoid further panic that might worsen the financial depression 240 The surgery occurred on July 1 to give Cleveland time to make a full recovery in time for the upcoming Congressional session 241 Under the guise of a vacation cruise Cleveland and his surgeon Dr Joseph Bryant left for New York The surgeons operated aboard the Oneida a yacht owned by Cleveland s friend E C Benedict as it sailed off Long Island 242 The surgery was conducted through the President s mouth to avoid any scars or other signs of surgery 243 The team sedating Cleveland with nitrous oxide and ether successfully removed parts of his upper left jaw and hard palate 243 The size of the tumor and the extent of the operation left Cleveland s mouth disfigured 244 During another surgery Cleveland was fitted with a hard rubber dental prosthesis that corrected his speech and restored his appearance 244 A cover story about the removal of two bad teeth kept the suspicious press placated 245 Even when a newspaper story appeared giving details of the actual operation the participating surgeons discounted the severity of what transpired during Cleveland s vacation 244 In 1917 one of the surgeons present on the Oneida Dr William W Keen wrote an article detailing the operation 246 Cleveland enjoyed many years of life after the tumor was removed and there was some debate as to whether it was actually malignant Several doctors including Dr Keen stated after Cleveland s death that the tumor was a carcinoma 246 Other suggestions included ameloblastoma 247 or a benign salivary mixed tumor also known as a pleomorphic adenoma 248 In the 1980s analysis of the specimen finally confirmed the tumor to be verrucous carcinoma 249 a low grade epithelial cancer with a low potential for metastasis 239 Administration and cabinet Cleveland s last Cabinet Front row left to right Daniel S Lamont Richard Olney Cleveland John G Carlisle Judson Harmon Back row left to right David R Francis William Lyne Wilson Hilary A Herbert Julius S Morton The Second Cleveland cabinetOfficeNameTermPresidentGrover Cleveland1893 1897Vice PresidentAdlai E Stevenson I1893 1897Secretary of StateWalter Q Gresham1893 1895Richard Olney1895 1897Secretary of the TreasuryJohn G Carlisle1893 1897Secretary of WarDaniel S Lamont1893 1897Attorney GeneralRichard Olney1893 1895Judson Harmon1895 1897Postmaster GeneralWilson S Bissell1893 1895William Lyne Wilson1895 1897Secretary of the NavyHilary A Herbert1893 1897Secretary of the InteriorM Hoke Smith1893 1896David R Francis1896 1897Secretary of AgricultureJulius Sterling Morton1893 1897 Judicial appointments Main article List of federal judges appointed by Grover Cleveland Cleveland s trouble with the Senate hindered the success of his nominations to the Supreme Court in his second term In 1893 after the death of Samuel Blatchford Cleveland nominated William B Hornblower to the Court 250 Hornblower the head of a New York City law firm was thought to be a qualified appointee but his campaign against a New York machine politician had made Senator David B Hill his enemy 250 Further Cleveland had not consulted the Senators before naming his appointee leaving many who were already opposed to Cleveland on other grounds even more aggrieved 250 The Senate rejected Hornblower s nomination on January 15 1894 by a vote of 30 to 24 250 Cleveland continued to defy the Senate by next appointing Wheeler Hazard Peckham another New York attorney who had opposed Hill s machine in that state 251 Hill used all of his influence to block Peckham s confirmation and on February 16 1894 the Senate rejected the nomination by a vote of 32 to 41 251 Reformers urged Cleveland to continue the fight against Hill and to nominate Frederic R Coudert but Cleveland acquiesced in an inoffensive choice that of Senator Edward Douglass White of Louisiana whose nomination was accepted unanimously 251 Later in 1895 another vacancy on the Court led Cleveland to consider Hornblower again but he declined to be nominated 252 Instead Cleveland nominated Rufus Wheeler Peckham the brother of Wheeler Hazard Peckham and the Senate confirmed the second Peckham easily 252 States admitted to the Union No new states were admitted to the Union during Cleveland s first term On February 22 1889 10 days before leaving office the 50th Congress passed the Enabling Act of 1889 authorizing North Dakota South Dakota Montana and Washington to form state governments and to gain admission to the Union All four officially became states in November 1889 during the first year of the Benjamin Harrison administration 253 254 During his second term the 53rd United States Congress passed an Enabling Act that permitted Utah to apply for statehood Cleveland signed it on July 16 1894 255 256 Utah joined the Union as the 45th state on January 4 1896 1896 election and retirement 1897 1908 Cleveland in 1903 at age 66 by Frederick Gutekunst Cleveland s agrarian and silverite enemies gained control of the Democratic Party in 1896 repudiated his administration and the gold standard and nominated William Jennings Bryan on a free silver platform 257 258 Cleveland silently supported the Gold Democrats third party ticket that promised to defend the gold standard limit government and oppose high tariffs but he declined their nomination for a third term 259 The party won only 100 000 votes in the general election and William McKinley the Republican nominee triumphed easily over Bryan 260 Agrarians nominated Bryan again in 1900 In 1904 the conservatives with Cleveland s support regained control of the Democratic Party and nominated Alton B Parker 261 Outgoing President Cleveland at right stands nearby as William McKinley is sworn in as president by Chief Justice Melville Fuller After leaving the White House on March 4 1897 Cleveland lived in retirement at his estate Westland Mansion in Princeton New Jersey 262 For a time he was a trustee of Princeton University and was one of the majority of trustees who preferred the dean Andrew Fleming West s plans for the Graduate School and undergraduate living over those of Woodrow Wilson then president of the university 263 Cleveland consulted occasionally with President Theodore Roosevelt 1901 1909 but was financially unable to accept the chairmanship of the commission handling the Coal Strike of 1902 264 Cleveland still made his views known in political matters In a 1905 article in The Ladies Home Journal Cleveland weighed in on the women s suffrage movement writing that sensible and responsible women do not want to vote The relative positions to be assumed by men and women in the working out of our civilization were assigned long ago by a higher intelligence 265 The last known photograph of Cleveland by Underwood amp Underwood 1907 In 1906 a group of New Jersey Democrats promoted Cleveland as a possible candidate for the United States Senate The incumbent John F Dryden was not seeking re election and some Democrats felt that the former president could attract the votes of some disaffected Republican legislators who might be drawn to Cleveland s statesmanship and conservatism 266 DeathCleveland s health had been declining for several years and in the autumn of 1907 he fell seriously ill 267 In 1908 he suffered a heart attack and died on June 24 at age 71 in his Princeton residence 267 268 His last words were I have tried so hard to do right 269 He is buried in the Princeton Cemetery of the Nassau Presbyterian Church 270 Honors and memorialsIn his first term in office Cleveland sought a summer house to escape the heat and smells of Washington D C near enough the capital He secretly bought a farmhouse Oak View or Oak Hill in a rural upland part of the District of Columbia in 1886 and remodeled it into a Queen Anne style summer estate He sold Oak View upon losing his bid for re election in 1888 Not long thereafter suburban residential development reached the area which came to be known as Oak View and then Cleveland Heights and eventually Cleveland Park 271 The Clevelands are depicted in local murals 272 Grover Cleveland Hall at Buffalo State College in Buffalo New York is named after Cleveland Cleveland Hall houses the offices of the college president vice presidents and other administrative functions and student services Cleveland was a member of the first board of directors of the then Buffalo Normal School 273 Grover Cleveland Middle School in his birthplace Caldwell New Jersey was named for him as is Grover Cleveland High School in Buffalo New York and the town of Cleveland Mississippi Mount Cleveland a volcano in Alaska is also named after him 274 In 1895 he became the first U S president who was filmed 275 The first U S postage stamp to honor Cleveland appeared in 1923 This twelve cent issue accompanied a thirteen cent stamp in the same definitive series that depicted his old rival Benjamin Harrison Cleveland s only two subsequent stamp appearances have been in issues devoted to the full roster of U S Presidents released respectively in 1938 and 1986 Cleveland s portrait was on the U S 1000 bill of series 1928 and series 1934 He also appeared on the first few issues of the 20 Federal Reserve Notes from 1914 Since he was both the 22nd and 24th president he was featured on two separate dollar coins released in 2012 as part of the Presidential 1 Coin Act of 2005 In 2013 Cleveland was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame 1000 Gold Certificate 1934 depicting Grover Cleveland Cleveland postage stamp issued in 1923See also Biography portal Conservatism portal New Jersey portal New York state portal Politics portal Law portal United States portalGrover Cleveland Birthplace Presidencies of Grover Cleveland Child with Maria Halpin Children with Frances ClevelandReferencesInformational notes Vice President Hendricks died in office As this was prior to the adoption of the Twenty fifth Amendment in 1967 a vacancy in the office of vice president was not filled until the next ensuing election and inauguration He is therefore the only person to be counted twice in the numbering of the presidents John Tyler who married his second wife Julia Gardiner in 1844 was the first Citations Blum 527 Jeffers 8 12 Nevins 4 5 Beito and Beito McFarland 11 56 Gould passim a b Tugwell 220 249 Nevins 4 President Making in the Gilded Age The Nominating Conventions of 1876 1900 by Stan M Haynes page 2 Nevins 8 10 Graff 3 4 Nevins 8 10 Graff 3 4 Nevins 6 Nevins 9 Graff 7 Nevins 10 Graff 3 Nevins 11 Graff 8 9 Nevins 11 Jeffers 17 Nevins 17 19 Tugwell 14 a b Nevins 21 Nevins 18 19 Jeffers 19 Nevins 23 27 Nevins 27 33 Nevins 31 36 Graff 11 a b c Graff 14 Graff 14 15 Graff 15 Nevins 46 Graff 14 Nevins 51 52 a b Nevins 52 53 Nevins 54 Nevins 54 55 Nevins 55 56 Nevins 56 Tugwell 26 Nevins 44 45 Tugwell 32 a b Nevins 58 Jeffers 33 Nelson Julie 2003 American Presidents Year by Year Routledge p 334 ISBN 978 0 7656 8046 4 Tugwell 36 a b c Jeffers 34 Nevins 61 62 The Execution of John Gaffney The Buffalonian Archived from the original on October 6 2017 Retrieved March 27 2008 Jeffers 36 Nevins 64 Nevins 66 71 Nevins 78 Sexual misconduct allegations against presidents have a long history George H W Bush is latest Newsweek October 25 2017 Keiles Jamie Lauren August 26 2015 Grover Cleveland a Rapist President Vice Serratore Angela September 26 2013 President Cleveland s Problem Child Smithsonian Magazine a b c d Huck C 2017 The Halpin Affair How Cleveland went from Scandal to Success Wittenberg History Journal vol 46 p 5 8 Lachman Charles May 23 2011 Grover Cleveland s Sex Scandal The Most Despicable in American Political History The Daily Beast Retrieved July 3 2020 a b Hamilton Neil A 2005 Presidents A Biographical Dictionary Infobase Publishing p 183 ISBN 978 1 4381 0816 2 a b c Henry F Graff 2002 Grover Cleveland The American Presidents Series The 22nd and 24th President 1885 1889 and 1893 1897 Henry Holt and Company pp 60 63 ISBN 978 0 8050 6923 5 Nevins 79 Graff 18 19 Jeffers 42 45 Welch 24 Nevins 79 80 Graff 18 19 Welch 24 a b Nevins 80 81 Nevins 83 Timeline Articles and Essays Grover Cleveland Papers Digital Collections The Library of Congress October 29 1947 Retrieved April 2 2023 Graff 19 Jeffers 46 50 a b Nevins 84 86 Nevins 85 Nevins 86 Tugwell 58 Nevins 94 95 Jeffers 50 51 a b Nevins 94 99 Graff 26 27 Tugwell 68 70 Graff 26 Nevins 101 103 Nevins 103 104 Nevins 105 Graff 28 Graff 35 Graff 35 36 Nevins 114 116 a b c Nevins 116 117 a b Nevins 117 118 Nevins 125 126 Tugwell 77 Tugwell 73 Nevins 138 140 a b Nevins 185 186 Jeffers 96 97 Tugwell 88 a b c Nevins 146 147 Nevins 147 Nevins 152 153 Graff 51 53 Nevins 153 a b Nevins 154 Graff 53 54 Tugwell 80 Summers passim Grossman 31 Tugwell 84 a b Nevins 156 159 Graff 55 Nevins 187 188 Tugwell 93 a b Nevins 159 162 Graff 59 60 Graff 59 Jeffers 111 Nevins 177 Welch 34 Jeff Jacoby Grover the good the most honest president of them all Boston Globe February 15 2015 pp 2 15 Lachman Charles 2011 Chapter 9 A Terrible Tale A Secret Life The Sex Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland Skyhorse Publishing pp 195 216 ISBN 978 1 61608 275 8 Retrieved October 14 2016 Tugwell 90 Lachman Charles 2011 A Secret Life The Sex Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland Skyhorse Publishing pp 285 288 ISBN 978 1 61608 275 8 Welch 33 Nevins 170 171 Nevins 170 Nevins 181 184 Tugwell 94 95 a b Leip David 1884 Presidential Election Results Dave Leip s Atlas of U S Presidential Elections Retrieved January 27 2008 Electoral College Box Scores 1789 1996 National Archives and Records Administration Retrieved January 27 2008 Graff 64 Nevins 208 211 Nevins 214 217 Graff 83 Tugwell 100 Nevins 238 241 Welch 59 60 Nevins 354 357 Graff 85 Nevins 217 223 Graff 77 a b c Nevins 223 228 Tugwell 130 134 Graff 85 Nevins 326 328 Graff 83 84 Nevins 300 331 Graff 83 See List of United States presidential vetoes a b Nevins 331 332 Graff 85 Cleveland s Veto of the Texas Seed Bill The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland New York Cassell Publishing Co 1892 p 450 ISBN 978 0 217 89899 7 Jeffers 157 158 a b Nevins 201 205 Graff 102 103 Nevins 269 Tugwell 110 Nevins 268 a b Nevins 273 Nevins 277 279 The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland New York Cassell Publishing Co 1892 pp 72 73 ISBN 978 0 217 89899 7 Grover Cleveland Key Events University of Virginia Miller Center Retrieved June 3 2019 a b Nevins 280 282 Reitano 46 62 Nevins 286 287 Nevins 287 288 Nevins 290 296 Graff 87 88 Nevins 370 371 Nevins 379 381 Nevins 383 385 a b Graff 88 89 Nevins 205 404 405 Nevins 404 413 a b Zakaria 80 a b Berhow pp 9 10 a b Endicott and Taft Boards at the Coast Defense Study Group website Archived from the original on February 4 2016 Berhow p 8 Civil War and 1870s defenses at the Coast Defense Study Group website Archived from the original on February 4 2016 Berhow pp 201 226 List of all US coastal forts and batteries at the Coast Defense Study Group website William Crowninshield Endicott from Bell William Gardner 1992 Secretaries of War and Secretaries of the Army Center of Military History US Army Bauer and Roberts p 141 Bauer and Roberts p 102 Bauer and Roberts pp 101 133 141 147 a b Welch 65 66 Booker Christopher Brian 2014 No Force bill No Negro Domination in the South President Grover Cleveland and the Return to Power of the Democratic Party African Americans amp the Presidency Archived from the original on October 17 2016 Retrieved November 15 2016 Welch 72 a b Welch 73 a b c Welch 70 Nevins 358 359 Graff 206 207 a b c d Brodsky 141 142 Nevins 228 229 Brodsky 158 Jeffers 149 a b Graff 78 Graff 79 Jeffers 170 176 Graff 78 81 Nevins 302 308 Welch 51 Graff 80 81 William Grimes Philippa Foot Renowned Philosopher Dies at 90 NY Times October 9 2010 Oscar Folsom Cleveland Geni com September 2 2018 Retrieved February 20 2019 Daniel J Meador Lamar to the Court Last Step to National Reunion Supreme Court Historical Society Yearbook 1986 27 47 ISSN 0362 5249 Willard L King Melville Weston Fuller Chief Justice of the United States 1888 1910 1950 Nevins 445 450 a b Graff 90 91 Tugwell 166 Nevins 418 420 Nevins 423 427 Leip David 1888 Presidential Election Results Dave Leip s Atlas of U S Presidential Elections Retrieved February 18 2008 Electoral College Box Scores 1789 1996 National Archives and Records Administration Retrieved February 18 2008 Nevins 435 439 Jeffers 220 222 Nevins 443 449 Nevins 448 Tugwell 175 Nevins 450 Graff 99 100 Tugwell 168 Graff 102 105 Nevins 465 467 Graff 104 105 Nevins 467 468 Nevins 470 471 Nevins 468 469 a b Nevins 470 473 Tugwell 182 Graff 105 Nevins 492 493 William DeGregorio The Complete Book of U S Presidents Gramercy 1997 U S Senate Art amp History Home gt Adlai Ewing Stevenson 23rd Vice President 1893 1897 Senate gov n d Retrieved May 30 2011 Nevins 498 Calhoun 149 Nevins 499 Graff 106 107 Nevins 505 506 Graff 108 Tugwell 184 185 Leip David 1892 Presidential Election Results Dave Leip s Atlas of U S Presidential Elections Retrieved February 22 2008 Electoral College Box Scores 1789 1996 National Archives and Records Administration Retrieved February 22 2008 Graff 114 a b Nevins 526 528 Nevins 524 528 537 540 The vote was 239 to 108 Tugwell 192 195 Welch 126 127 Timberlake Richard H 1993 Monetary Policy in the United States An Intellectual and Institutional History University of Chicago Press p 179 ISBN 978 0 226 80384 5 Festus P Summers William L Wilson and Tariff Reform A Biography 1974 Nevins 567 the vote was 204 to 140 a b Nevins 564 566 Jeffers 285 287 Lambert 213 215 The income tax component of the Wilson Gorman Act was partially ruled unconstitutional in 1895 See Pollock v Farmers Loan amp Trust Co Nevins 577 578 Nevins 585 587 Jeffers 288 289 Nevins 564 588 Jeffers 285 289 James B Hedges 1940 North America in William L Langer ed An Encyclopedia of World History Boston Houghton Mifflin Part V Section G Subsection 1c p 794 Congressional Research Service 2004 The Constitution of the United States Analysis and Interpretation Analysis of Cases Decided by the Supreme Court of the United States to June 28 2002 Washington Government Printing Office Fifteenth Amendment Congressional Enforcement Federal Remedial Legislation p 2058 Nevins 568 a b c d Graff 117 118 Nevins 603 605 Graff 118 Jeffers 280 281 Nevins 611 613 Nevins 614 Nevins 614 618 Graff 118 119 Jeffers 296 297 Nevins 619 623 Jeffers 298 302 See also In re Debs Nevins 628 Nevins 624 628 Jeffers 304 305 Graff 120 Francis Lynde Stetson to Cleveland October 7 1894 in Allan Nevins ed Letters of Grover Cleveland 1850 1908 1933 p 369 Richard J Jensen The Winning of the Midwest Social and Political Conflict 1888 96 1971 pp 229 230 a b Nevins 560 a b Nevins 549 552 Graff 121 122 a b Nevins 552 554 Graff 122 a b Nevins 558 559 Welch 174 McWilliams 25 36 Fareed Zakaria From wealth to power The unusual origins of America s world role Princeton University Press 1999 pp 145 146 Graff 123 125 Nevins 633 642 Paul Gibb Unmasterly Inactivity Sir Julian Pauncefote Lord Salisbury and the Venezuela Boundary Dispute Diplomacy amp Statecraft Mar 2005 Vol 16 Issue 1 pp 23 55 Blake Nelson M 1942 Background of Cleveland s Venezuelan Policy The American Historical Review 47 2 259 277 doi 10 2307 1841667 JSTOR 1841667 Graff 123 125 Nevins 550 633 648 Bruce N Canfield The Foreign Rifle U S Krag Jorgensen American Rifleman October 2010 pp 86 89 126 129 Hanevik Karl Egil 1998 Norske Militaergevaerer etter 1867 Friedman pp 35 38 Bauer and Roberts pp 162 165 Bauer and Roberts pp 102 104 162 165 a b A Renehan J C Lowry July 1995 The oral tumours of two American presidents what if they were alive today J R Soc Med 88 7 377 383 PMC 1295266 PMID 7562805 Nevins 528 529 Graff 115 116 Nevins 531 533 Nevins 529 a b Nevins 530 531 a b c Nevins 532 533 Nevins 533 Graff 116 a b Keen William W 1917 The Surgical Operations on President Cleveland in 1893 G W Jacobs amp Co The lump was preserved and is on display at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia Hardig WG 1974 Oral surgery and the presidents a century of contrast J Oral Surg 32 7 490 493 PMID 4601118 Miller JM 1961 Stephen Grover Cleveland Surg Gynecol Obstet 113 524 9 PMID 13770838 Brooks JJ Enterline HT Aponte GE 1908 The final diagnosis of President Cleveland s lesion Trans Stud Coll Physic Philadelphia 2 1 a b c d Nevins 569 570 a b c Nevins 570 571 a b Nevins 572 Today in History November 11 loc gov Library of Congress Today in History November 2 loc gov Library of Congress Timberlake Richard H 1993 Monetary Policy in the United States An Intellectual and Institutional History University of Chicago Press p 77 ISBN 978 0 226 80384 5 Thatcher Linda 2016 Struggle For Statehood Chronology historytogo utah gov State of Utah Retrieved March 18 2020 Nevins 684 693 R Hal Williams Years of Decision American Politics in the 1890s 1993 Graff 128 129 Leip David 1896 Presidential Election Results Dave Leip s Atlas of U S Presidential Elections Retrieved February 23 2008 Nevins 754 758 Graff 131 133 Nevins 730 735 Graff p 131 Alexander Leitch A Princeton Companion Princeton Univ Press 1978 Grover Cleveland Archived June 26 2013 at the Wayback Machine Nevins 748 751 Ladies Home Journal 22 October 1905 7 8 Dryden Forces Gather to Make Their Fight The New York Times November 11 1906 Retrieved March 4 2015 a b Graff 135 136 Nevins 762 764 Grover Cleveland Home Westland New Jersey National Park Service Retrieved December 18 2020 Jeffers 340 Graff 135 Nevins makes no mention of these last words Roberts Russell 1995 Discover the Hidden New Jersey Rutgers University Press ISBN 978 0 8135 2252 4 Retrieved August 22 2012 Kimberly Prothro Williams Cleveland Park Historic District brochure D C Preservation League 2001 See e g A Brief History of Cleveland Park Cleveland Park Historical Society Archived from the original on November 26 2011 Retrieved April 8 2009 Buffalo State College Cleveland Hall Retrieved November 11 2009 James D Myers 1994 The geology Geochemistry and Petrology of the recent Magmatic Phase of the Central and Western Aleutian Arc Unpublished manuscript University of Wyoming p 41 Archived PDF from the original on September 23 2015 Retrieved September 9 2010 Grover Cleveland 24th President Presidentsgraves com June 24 1908 Archived from the original on August 1 2012 Retrieved October 17 2012 Further reading Bauer K Jack Roberts Stephen S 1991 Register of Ships of the U S Navy 1775 1990 Major Combatants Westport Connecticut Greenwood Press ISBN 978 0 313 26202 9 Bard Mitchell Ideology and Depression Politics I Grover Cleveland 1893 1897 Presidential Studies Quarterly 1985 15 1 77 88 ISSN 0360 4918 Beito David T and Beito Linda Royster Gold Democrats and the Decline of Classical Liberalism 1896 1900 Independent Review 4 Spring 2000 555 575 Berhow Mark A ed 2015 American Seacoast Defenses A Reference Guide Third Edition McLean Virginia CDSG Press ISBN 978 0 9748167 3 9 Blake Nelson M 1942 Background of Cleveland s Venezuelan Policy The American Historical Review 47 2 259 277 doi 10 2307 1841667 JSTOR 1841667 Blodgett Geoffrey Ethno cultural Realities in Presidential Patronage Grover Cleveland s Choices New York History 2000 81 2 189 210 ISSN 0146 437X when a German American leader called for fewer appointments of Irish Americans Cleveland instead appointed more Germans Blodgett Geoffrey The Emergence of Grover Cleveland a Fresh Appraisal New York History 1992 73 2 132 168 ISSN 0146 437X covers Cleveland to 1884 Blum John The National Experience 1993 ISBN 978 0 15 500366 8 Brodsky Alan Grover Cleveland A Study in Character 2000 ISBN 978 0 312 26883 1 Calhoun Charles William 2005 Benjamin Harrison Macmillan ISBN 978 0 8050 6952 5 Cleaver Nick Grover Cleveland s New Foreign Policy Arbitration Neutrality and the Dawn of American Empire Palgrave Macmillan 2014 DeSantis Vincent P Grover Cleveland Another Look Hayes Historical Journal 1980 3 1 2 41 50 ISSN 0364 5924 argues his energy honesty and devotion to duty much more than his actual accomplishments established his claim to greatness Dewey Davis R National Problems 1880 1897 1907 online edition Doenecke Justus Grover Cleveland and the Enforcement of the Civil Service Act Hayes Historical Journal 1984 4 3 44 58 ISSN 0364 5924 Dunlap Annette B Frank The Story of Frances Folsom Cleveland America s Youngest First Lady 2015 excerpt Dupont Brandon Henceforth I Must Have No Friends Evaluating the Economic Policies of Grover Cleveland Independent Review 18 4 2014 559 579 online Faulkner Harold U Politics Reform and Expansion 1890 1900 1959 online edition Ford Henry Jones The Cleveland Era A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics 1921 short overview online Gould Lewis America in the Progressive Era 1890 1914 2001 ISBN 978 0 582 35671 9 Graff Henry F Grover Cleveland 2002 ISBN 978 0 8050 6923 5 short biography by scholar Grossman Mark Political Corruption in America An Encyclopedia of Scandals Power and Greed 2003 ISBN 978 1 57607 060 4 Haeffele Balch Stefanie and Virgil Henry Storr Grover Cleveland against the special interests The Independent Review 18 4 2014 581 596 online Hirsch Mark D William C Whitney Modern Warwick 1948 biography of key political associate Hoffman Karen S Going Public in the Nineteenth Century Grover Cleveland s Repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act Rhetoric and Public Affairs 2002 5 1 57 77 in Project MUSE Hoffmann Charles 1956 The Depression of the Nineties The Journal of Economic History 16 2 137 164 doi 10 1017 S0022050700058629 JSTOR 2114113 S2CID 155082457 Hoffmann Charles Depression of the nineties an economic history 1970 Jeffers H Paul An Honest President The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland 2000 ISBN 978 0 380 97746 8 Kelley Robert 1966 Presbyterianism Jacksonianism and Grover Cleveland American Quarterly 18 4 615 636 doi 10 2307 2711386 JSTOR 2711386 Klinghard Daniel P Grover Cleveland William McKinley and the emergence of the president as party leader Presidential Studies Quarterly 35 4 2005 736 760 Lambert John R Arthur Pue Gorman 1953 Lynch G Patrick U S Presidential Elections in the Nineteenth Century Why Culture and the Economy Both Mattered Polity 35 1 2002 pp 29 50 in JSTOR focus on election of 1884 McElroy Robert Grover Cleveland the Man and the Statesman An Authorized Biography 1923 Vol I Vol II old fashioned narrative McFarland Gerald W Mugwumps morals amp politics 1884 1920 1975 ISBN 978 0 87023 175 9 McWilliams Tennant S James H Blount the South and Hawaiian Annexation Pacific Historical Review 1988 57 1 25 46 in JSTOR Merrill Horace Samuel Bourbon Leader Grover Cleveland and the Democratic Party 1957 228 pp Morgan H Wayne From Hayes to McKinley National Party Politics 1877 1896 1969 Nevins Allan Grover Cleveland A Study in Courage 1932 Pulitzer Prize winning biography the major resource on Cleveland Oberholtzer Ellis Paxson A History of the United States since the Civil War Volume V 1888 1901 Macmillan 1937 791 pp comprehensive old fashioned political history Pafford John M The Forgotten Conservative Rediscovering Grover Cleveland Simon and Schuster 2013 excerpt Dwight D Murphey The Forgotten Conservative Rediscovering Grover Cleveland The Journal of Social Political and Economic Studies 38 4 Winter 2013 491 500 review Reitano Joanne R The Tariff Question in the Gilded Age The Great Debate of 1888 1994 ISBN 978 0 271 01035 9 Rhodes James Ford History of the United States from the Compromise of 1850 1877 1896 1919 online complete old factual and heavily political by winner of Pulitzer Prize Senik Troy A Man of Iron The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland Threshold Editions 2022 Sturgis Amy H ed Presidents from Hayes Through McKinley Debating the Issues in Pro and Con Primary Documents Greenwood 2003 Summers Mark Wahlgren Rum Romanism amp Rebellion The Making of a President 1884 2000 ISBN 978 0 8078 4849 4 campaign techniques and issues online edition Tugwell Rexford Guy Grover Cleveland Simon amp Schuster Inc 1968 Walters Ryan S Grover Cleveland The Last Jeffersonian President 2021 excerpt Welch Richard E Jr The Presidencies of Grover Cleveland 1988 ISBN 978 0 7006 0355 8 scholarly study of the presidential years Wilson Woodrow Mr Cleveland as President Atlantic Monthly March 1897 pp 289 301 online Wilson later became president Zakaria Fareed From Wealth to Power 1999 Princeton University Press ISBN 978 0 691 01035 9 Primary sources dd Cleveland Grover The Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland 1892 online edition Cleveland Grover Presidential Problems 1904 online edition Nevins Allan ed Letters of Grover Cleveland 1850 1908 1933 National Democratic Committee 1896 Campaign Text book of the National Democratic Party National Democratic committee handbook of the Gold Democrats who admired Cleveland Sturgis Amy H ed Presidents from Hayes through McKinley 1877 1901 Debating the Issues in Pro and Con Primary Documents 2003 online edition Wilson William L The Cabinet Diary of William L Wilson 1896 1897 1957 online editionExternal linksGrover Cleveland at Wikipedia s sister projects Media from Commons Quotations from Wikiquote Texts from Wikisource Letters and speeches Text of a number of Cleveland s speeches at the Miller Center of Public Affairs Finding Aid to the Grover Cleveland Manuscripts 1867 1908 at the New York State Library Retrieved May 11 2016 10 letters written by Grover Cleveland in 1884 86 Grover Cleveland Personal ManuscriptsMedia coverage Grover Cleveland collected news and commentary at The New York TimesOther Grover Cleveland A Resource Guide Library of Congress Grover Cleveland A bibliography by the Buffalo History Museum Grover Cleveland Sites in Buffalo NY A Google Map developed by The Buffalo History Museum Top Five Urban Legends About Grover Cleveland in Buffalo A slide deck by the Buffalo History Museum Index to the Grover Cleveland Papers at the Library of Congress Essay on Cleveland and each member of his cabinet and First Lady Miller Center of Public Affairs Life Portrait of Grover Cleveland from C SPAN s American Presidents Life Portraits August 13 1999 Interview with H Paul Jeffers on An Honest President The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland Booknotes 2000 Works by Grover Cleveland at Project Gutenberg Works by Grover Cleveland at LibriVox public domain audiobooks Works by or about Grover Cleveland at Internet Archive Grover Cleveland at IMDb Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Grover Cleveland amp oldid 1152259131, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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