Grover Cleveland

I

Introduction

Grover Cleveland (1837-1908), 22nd and 24th president of the United States (1885-1889, 1893-1897), the only chief executive to be re-elected after defeat. Cleveland adopted the credo “a public office is a public trust” and in his two nonconsecutive terms spent much of his energies resisting partisan influences and the political favouritism characteristic of that era.

Cleveland was born the son of a country clergyman in Caldwell, New Jersey, on March 18, 1837. His family soon moved to New York, settling in Fayetteville and then Clinton, where the family of nine children struggled on the father's modest salary. Prevented by his father's death from attending college, Cleveland moved to an uncle's home near Buffalo, New York, working as a clerk for a law firm. Studying by himself, he was admitted to the bar in 1859.

II

Rise to Prominence in New York

In a series of minor political offices, Cleveland won a reputation for scrupulous honesty. This earned him the Democratic nomination for mayor of Buffalo in 1881, and he won the office on a reform platform. In his inaugural address, he launched an attack on the notoriously corrupt board of aldermen of the city, and in the ensuing battles to reduce graft and break the board's power, Cleveland earned the title of the Veto Mayor. With bipartisan support in Buffalo, he became the Democratic nominee for governor in 1882 and achieved an enormous victory.

Pursuing reform in his first year as governor, Cleveland found two of his favourite bills stalled in the legislature by allies of New York's Democratic chairman, John Kelly. In the subsequent conflict, the city's Democrats became his permanent enemies.

In 1884 Cleveland's supporters proposed that he run for president. The Republican convention had chosen as its candidate James G. Blaine, whose political career had been marred by suggestions of corruption in aiding the railway industry years before. A sizeable reform faction in the Republican party, however, opposed Blaine's nomination, and they seceded, earning the label Mugwumps. They promised to vote for the yet unchosen Democratic candidate if he supported reform. Cleveland's past public service therefore made him the likely candidate despite the opposition of the New York Democrats. The promise of Mugwump votes swayed enough delegates to give him the needed margin.

III

First Term as President

Cleveland won the election after a close race that was marred by various personal accusations against both candidates. Taking office in 1885, he resisted the petitions of thousands of party members and supporters for jobs and continued the civil service reforms begun by his predecessor, Chester A. Arthur. This disappointed many Democrats who were hoping for lucrative jobs after 24 years of Republican rule. In 1887 Cleveland persuaded Congress to repeal the Tenure of Office Act, which had restricted the president's right to dismiss federal officeholders without the consent of the Senate. This left him free to remove officials appointed by the previous administration before their terms expired, to carry out reforms in government agencies, and to reassert the independence of the president's powers. In two other controversial moves, he vetoed a general pension bill that would have allowed American Civil War veterans to collect pensions for disabilities suffered after they had left the army, and he opposed protective tariffs on imported goods. Cleveland narrowly lost the election of 1888 to the Republican Benjamin Harrison despite winning a majority of the popular vote.

IV

Second Term

Under the Harrison administration, inflation increased the price of consumer goods, and public sentiment turned against the protective tariff the Republicans passed in 1890. Cleveland was persuaded to seek office again in 1892, and he ran on an antitariff platform. Winning the election, he returned to Washington in 1893 to face the beginnings of a depression.