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Grover Cleveland (view source)

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Cleveland built a strong cabinet of men loyal to him, including [[Thomas Bayard]] as secretary of state, Manning as secretary of the Treasury, and [[William C. Whitney]] as secretary of the navy. In 1888 he named conservative Chicago lawyer [[Melville W. Fuller]] as chief justice of the United States; Fuller served for twenty-two years.

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Cleveland refused to replace efficient Republican office-holders, angering patronage hungry local Democratic leaders but gaining the admiration of reformers. To signal the end of the Civil War era, he appointed two southerners to the cabinet, and returned Confederate battle flags that had been captured during the war. Union veterans were angry at him, an anger that intensified when he energetically vetoed hundreds of private pension bills based on dubious wartime claims. He vetoed a bill to give $10,000 to distribute seed grain among drought-stricken farmers in Texas, and said: "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." He set a record that still stands, with 414 vetoes in his first term. He vetoed twice as many bills as all previous presidents combined. Most were minor matters, though he also vetoed a major bill to restrict immigration from China.

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Cleveland refused to replace efficient Republican office-holders, angering patronage hungry local Democratic leaders but gaining the admiration of reformers. To signal the end of the Civil War era, he appointed two southerners to the cabinet, and returned Confederate battle flags that had been captured during the war. Union veterans were angry at him, an anger that intensified when he energetically vetoed hundreds of private pension bills based on dubious wartime claims. He vetoed a bill to give $10,000 to distribute seed grain among drought-stricken farmers in Texas, and said: "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." He set a record that still stands, with 414 vetoes in his first term.

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==Second term, 1893-97 ==

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Cleveland's most important appointees were [[John Carlisle]] as Secretary of the Treasury, and [[Richard Olney]] as Attorney General. Carlisle, of Kentucky, had been Speaker of the House, and was a tariff expert. Olney was a leading railroad lawyer in Boston; in 1895 the aggressive, undiplomatic Olney became Secretary of State.

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Cleveland's most important appointees were [[John Carlisle]] as Secretary of the Treasury, and [[Richard Olney]] as Attorney General. Carlisle, of Kentucky, had been Speaker of the House, and was a tariff expert. Olney was a leading railroad lawyer in Boston; in 1895 the aggressive, undiplomatic Olney became Secretary of State. Cleveland had strained relations with the media, in sharp contrast to his successor McKinley who systematically used and manipulated the press to advance his political agenda.

====Depression====

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Cleveland tried to lower the tariff in 1893-94 and result was a fiasco. The House did vote much lower rates, but protectionist Democrats in the Senate, led by Senator Arthur Pue Gorman, Democrat of Maryland, raised them again, and added an income tax of 2% on incomes over $4000, leaving Cleveland's main campaign promises of tariff reform in shambles. He allowed the "Wilson-Gorman Tariff Act", including the income tax, to become law without his signature in 1894.</ref> The Supreme Court in 1895 declared the income tax of 1894 unconstitutional. The income tax was legalized by the [[Sixteenth Amendment]] in 1913.</ref>

===Pullman Strike: 1894===

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Deep in the depression, in summer 1894 the Pullman strike, based in Chicago, was an attempt by workers tried to stop all trains, including those carrying the U.S. mail. Noting that the mail is a constitutional duty of the federal government, Cleveland rejected the demands by Illinois Governor [[John Peter Altgeld]], a fellow Democrat, to stay out. Altgeld, with ties to the labor unions, was a leader of the radical left wing of the party, and was using states rights arguments favored by southerners who wanted no federal protection of the voting rights of blacks. "If it takes the the entire army and navy . . . to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card will be delivered." he promised. Cleveland ignored Altgeld and the states rights argument and sent in the army to take control of the rail yards in Chicago and dozens of other major cities. Cleveland had the strike leaders arrested as strikers attacked the army in numerous cities . The army reopened the rail system.

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Deep in the depression, in summer 1894 the Pullman strike, based in Chicago, was an attempt by workers tried to stop all trains, including those carrying the U.S. mail. Noting that the mail is a constitutional duty of the federal government, Cleveland rejected the demands by Illinois Governor [[John Peter Altgeld]], a fellow Democrat, to stay out. Altgeld, with ties to the labor unions, was a leader of the radical left wing of the party, and was using states rights arguments favored by southerners who wanted no federal protection of the voting rights of blacks. "If it takes the the entire army and navy . . . to deliver a postal card in Chicago, that card will be delivered." he promised. Cleveland ignored Altgeld and the states rights argument --and indeed consulted with no one outside his cabinet--and sent in the army to take control of the rail yards in Chicago and dozens of other major cities. Cleveland had the strike leaders arrested as strikers attacked the army violently in numerous cities. The army reopened the rail system, ended the strike, and broke the union. Cleveland had made the most dramatic intervention of federal power into local affairs since the end of [[Reconstruction]], and was bitterly resented by states-rights elements.

The fall elections of 1894 brought a massive Republican landslide, and wiped out the Populist party in the West and the Democratic party in the Northeast. The result was that Cleveland's leftist enemies in the Democratic party, based in the South and Midwest, ganied strength.

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===1896===

Radical agrarians rejected Cleveland and the [[Gold Democrats]], taking over the Democratic party in 1896 and nominating firebrand [[William Jennings Bryan]] of Nebraska. Bryan vehemently denounced industrialists and bankers in his famous “Cross of Gold Speech.” Bryan called for inflation by putting more money in circulation; his plan was to legislate cheap silver into legal currency at the ratio of 16 oz of silver to one oz of gold, hence the silverite slogan “16 to 1.” . Many of Cleveland's closest associates bolted the Democratic party and formed the "Gold Democrats"; many Cleveland supporters voted for republican candidate [[William McKinley]]. Cleveland himself remained silent.

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==Evaluation==

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Cleveland, the hardest worker in Washington, was a micromanager--answering the phone himself, drafting routine letters. He seldom consulted with other political leaders, and thus kept aloof from the wheeling and dealing and compromising that might undercut his reputation for total independence. The ''New York Times'' editorialized two days before he finally left office in March 1897, that this dutifulness "has completely estranged powerful Democrats who were able to deprive him of the support of great States and to turn against him their Members and Senators. It has provoked implacable enmities potent enough to obstruct or thwart his greatest designs and highest policies." Harry Thurston Peck, a shrewd journalist, concluded in 1908, "But it was Cleveland's lot to alienate in turn every important interest, faction and party in the United States; and he did this always in obedience to his own matured conception of his duty."

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Historians are split. All have admired his courage and honesty and dedication to republicanism. Critics note that he left office repudiated by his party and the American people for his failures in the economic realm. Thus historian Thomas Bailey concluded, "He left office at the end of his second term with the economy panic riddled, the Treasury in the red, his party disrupted, his Republican opponents triumphant, and himself formally repudiated by his Democratic following."<ref> Thomas Bailey, ''Presidential Greatness'' (1966) p 300</ref>

==Retirement==

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