The 22d and 24th president of the United States, Grover Cleveland is the only American chief executive to have served nonconsecutive terms (1885–89 and 1893–97).
Stephen Grover Cleveland was born on Mar. 18, 1837, in Caldwell, N.J. His father, a Presbyterian clergyman, took the family to New York State in 1841. On the father's death in 1853 the family was in difficult financial straits, and young Grover left home. He worked one year in New York City at the New York Institution for the Blind before moving to Buffalo in 1855 to live with a wealthy uncle. He studied law in Buffalo and was admitted to the bar in 1859.
Entering politics as a Democrat, Cleveland became assistant district attorney of Erie County in 1863. In the same year he was called for military service in the Civil War, but he paid to have a substitute go in his place so that he could support his mother and sisters. After the war Cleveland served (1871–73) one term as Erie County sheriff, but for the most part he devoted himself to his law practice.
Cleveland's meteoric rise to the presidency began in 1881 when he won election as a reform mayor of Buffalo. True to his campaign promises to deal firmly with corruption and to cut the city's budget, he became known as the "veto mayor," refusing to approve several expensive measures passed by the city council. Although still little known outside of Buffalo, he caught the eye of state Democratic leaders, who saw Cleveland as the perfect foil to the Republican gubernatorial candidate, a machine politician. In 1882, therefore, Cleveland received the Democratic nomination for governor. He won the election largely because he was a fresh face in politics.
Taking office in 1883, Cleveland angered some voters by vetoing a bill to reduce fares on New York City elevated railroads to 5 cents. Even this unpopular act, however, served to establish his reputation as an independent man of principle. He was persistently at odds with the leadership of New York City's Democratic machine (Tammany Hall) and thus antagonized a powerful faction in his party. He simultaneously strengthened his public image, however, as an opponent of the spoils system
When the 1884 Republican presidential nomination went to James G. Blaine, a senator accused of influence peddling, the Democrats sought to highlight the issue of public morality, and Cleveland was again their logical choice. The campaign that followed his nomination was marked by much mudslinging, including the revelation that Cleveland had fathered an illegitimate child as well as further exposures of Blaine's shady bond deals as a congressman. In a close contest, Cleveland won by a plurality rather than a majority of the popular vote.
During his first term Cleveland was unable to preserve or expand his coalition of support. Elected under a reform banner, he was pressed by civil service reformers to distribute patronage on the basis of merit. On the other hand, most Democratic leaders, hungry for spoils after 24 years without a Democratic president, clamored for the removal of all Republican appointees from federal positions. Cleveland gradually gave in to his party's majority, dispensing most of the patronage to "deserving" Democrats.
He was more successful in dealing with Congress on the issue of executive prerogative, bringing about repeal of the Tenure of Office Act. As a matter of principle he also resisted congressional efforts to distribute the federal treasury surplus by granting new veterans' pensions, many of them based on weak or fraudulent claims. Small sums of money were saved, but Cleveland antagonized many potential recipients of pension benefits.
In December 1887, Cleveland sent Congress a message urging reduction of tariff levels. Since tariffs were then the chief source of federal revenue, he argued that the treasury's surplus would thus be reduced; at the same time, lower tariffs would save consumers money and end special federal privileges for favored, or protected, industries. The message was a bold stroke, but Cleveland then turned the issue over to congressional leaders who were either unable or unwilling to produce a reform bill. Running for reelection in 1888, he further weakened his stand by allowing the prominent protectionists William H. Barnum and Calvin S. Brice to manage his national campaign. In the end the tariff issue probably did him more harm than good. Cleveland was defeated in the election, winning a plurality of the popular vote but losing in the electoral college to the Republican Benjamin Harrison.
While Cleveland retired to private law practice in New York City, Harrison's administration produced several pieces of activist legislation, including the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, the McKinley Tariff, and record high budgets. For voters who considered these acts excessive, Cleveland's low-tariff and hard-money views seemed very attractive by comparison. Cleveland easily won the Democratic nomination in 1892, and discontent within the Republican party enabled him to defeat Harrison, with the Democrats winning control of both houses of Congress.
Upon taking office for the second time, Cleveland was faced with a national crisis. The treasury's gold reserves were rapidly dwindling, and a national depression was beginning. He responded by calling a special session of Congress in 1893 and pressed for repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. By exerting an unusual degree of presidential pressure, Cleveland accomplished his goal, but in bludgeoning Congress into accepting repeal he alienated the free silver wing of his party and expended most of his political capital. In seeking his second major legislative goal, tariff reform, he received little cooperation from Congress. A tariff bill, the Wilson-Gorman Tariff, passed Congress in 1894, but because it achieved few significant tariff revisions, it greatly disappointed Cleveland. He let it become law without his signature.
In foreign affairs Cleveland generally resisted the growing expansionism of the 1890s. His administration withdrew recognition of the revolutionaries who had overthrown the native Hawaiian monarchy in hope of forcing the United States to annex the islands. He also refused to intervene in Cuba in the struggle between the Cuban insurgents and the Spanish colonial government. Ironically, possibly the most popular act of his second administration was a departure from this cautious foreign policy. Late in 1895, Cleveland issued a belligerent warning that the United States would not tolerate British intervention in the Venezuela Boundary Dispute. The British, having little interest in challenging Cleveland's interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine, agreed to arbitrate the dispute.
Cleveland's handling of the nation's economic crisis sharpened the division between his administration and Democrats from the South and West. The president defended the gold standard by selling bonds through syndicates of New York bankers, including one led by J. P. Morgan. He endorsed the hostile treatment given Coxey's Army of the unemployed when it reached Washington, D.C., in 1894. During the Pullman Strike of the same year, his administration used an injunction against the strikers and sent federal troops to Chicago over the protests of Gov. J. P. Altgeld of Illinois. Disaffection with Cleveland increased until, in 1896, the Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan for president, thus repudiating Cleveland's leadership.
Some historians have portrayed Cleveland as a man of courage and principle, others as an inept and parochial leader who left his party in a shambles. Both views are partially accurate. Although capable of shrewd calculation where his political interests were involved, Cleveland was never comfortable with the give-and-take process of political compromise. He was courageous and principled, but he often failed to recognize these qualities in persons with views contrary to his. As a party leader, he was attuned to the interests of only one wing of his party, the Bourbon Democrats, who represented conservative business interests.
Many of Cleveland's major actions seem negative—his vetoes as mayor and governor, his campaigns to bring repeal of the Tenure of Office Act and the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and his intervention to break the Pullman Strike. As assertions of executive power, however, these actions contributed to the transition from the preeminence of legislatures in the Reconstruction era to stronger executive leadership early in the 20th century.
After leaving the presidency, Cleveland moved to Princeton, N.J. He resumed his legal practice, became a member of Princeton University's board of trustees, and played the role of elder statesman through writings and speeches. He died in Princeton on June 24, 1908.
