First presidency of Grover Cleveland
's first tenure as the president of the United States began on March 4, 1885, when he was inaugurated as the nation's 22nd president, and ended on March 4, 1889. Cleveland, a Democrat from New York, took office following his victory over James G. Blaine, a Republican from Maine, in the 1884 presidential election. Cleveland became the first Democrat elected president since before the Civil War. His first presidency ended following his re-election defeat in the 1888 presidential election to Benjamin Harrison, a Republican from Indiana.
Cleveland won the 1884 election with the support of a reform-minded group of Republicans known as Mugwumps, and he expanded the number of government positions that were protected by the Pendleton Civil Service Reform Act. He also vetoed several bills designed to provide pensions and other benefits to various regions and individuals. In response to anti-competitive practices by railroads, Cleveland signed the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which established the first independent federal agency. During his first term, he unsuccessfully sought the repeal of the Bland–Allison Act and a lowering of the tariff. The Samoan crisis was the major foreign policy event of Cleveland's first term, and that crisis ended with a tripartite protectorate in the Samoan Islands.
Cleveland later ran for re-election again in the 1892 presidential election, and he successfully re-elected to a second, non-consecutive term, following his victory over Harrison. He started his second presidency on March 4, 1893, as the 24th president, thus becoming the first former U.S. president to return to office.
Election of 1884
Cleveland had risen to prominence as an advocate of civil service reform, and he was widely viewed as a presidential contender after his victory in the 1882 New York gubernatorial election. Samuel J. Tilden, the party's nominee in 1876, was the initial front-runner, but he declined to run due to poor health. Cleveland, Thomas F. Bayard of Delaware, Allen G. Thurman of Ohio, and Benjamin Butler of Massachusetts each had considerable followings entering the 1884 Democratic National Convention. 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 South 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.Cleveland, too, had detractors—the Tammany Hall political machine opposed him—but the nature of his enemies made him still more friends. He also benefited from the backing of state party leader Daniel Manning, who positioned Cleveland as the natural heir to Tilden and emphasized the importance of New York's electoral votes in any Democratic presidential victory. Cleveland led on the convention's first ballot and clinched the nomination on the second ballot. Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana was selected as his running mate. The 1884 Republican National Convention nominated former Speaker of the House James G. Blaine of Maine for president; Blaine's nomination alienated many Republicans who viewed Blaine as ambitious and immoral.
Blaine campaigned on implementing a protective tariff, increasing international trade, and investing in infrastructure projects, while the Democratic campaign focused on Blaine's ethics. 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. Corruption in politics became the central issue in 1884, and Blaine had over the span of his career been involved in several questionable deals. Cleveland's reputation as an opponent of corruption proved the Democrats' strongest asset. Reform-minded Republicans called "Mugwumps", including men such as Carl Schurz and Henry Ward Beecher, denounced Blaine as corrupt and flocked to Cleveland. At the same time the Democrats gained support from the Mugwumps, they lost some blue-collar workers to the Greenback-Labor party, led by Benjamin Butler.
As expected, Cleveland carried the Solid South, while Blaine carried most of New England and the Midwest. The electoral votes of closely contested New York, New Jersey, Indiana, and Connecticut determined the election. After the votes were counted, Cleveland narrowly won all four of the swing states; he won his home state of New York by a margin of 0.1%, which amounted to just 1200 votes. Cleveland won the nationwide popular vote by one-quarter of a percent, while he won the electoral vote by a majority of 219–182. Cleveland's victory made him the first successful Democratic presidential nominee since the start of the Civil War. Despite Cleveland's successful candidacy, Republicans retained control of the Senate.
Administration
Cleveland was sworn into office as the 22nd president of the United States on March 4, 1885. That same day, Hendricks was sworn in as vice president. Hendricks died days into this term, and the office remained vacant since there was no constitutional provision at the time for filling an intra-term vice-presidential vacancy.Cabinet
Appointments
There was much speculation during the presidential transition period about who would be serving in Cleveland's cabinet. It was generally assumed that Thomas F. Bayard would be offered the position of secretary of state. By February 27, 1885, Cleveland had been reported to have settled on all the officeholders for his Cabinet. However, Daniel S. Lamont, Cleveland's private secretary, immediately denied reports that Cleveland had settled upon his Cabinet choices, and that he had announced his selections to others.Cleveland faced the challenge of putting together the first Democratic cabinet since the 1850s, and none of the individuals that he appointed to his cabinet had served in the cabinet of another administration. Senator Bayard, Cleveland's strongest rival for the 1884 nomination, accepted the position of Secretary of State. Daniel Manning, a key New York adviser for Cleveland as well as a close ally of Samuel Tilden, became the Secretary of the Treasury. Another New Yorker, the prominent financier William C. Whitney, was appointed Secretary of the Navy. For the position of Secretary of War, Cleveland appointed William C. Endicott, a prominent Massachusetts judge with ties to the Mugwumps. Cleveland chose two Southerners for his cabinet: Lucius Q. C. Lamar of Mississippi as Secretary of the Interior, and Augustus H. Garland of Arkansas as Attorney General. Postmaster General William F. Vilas of Wisconsin was the lone Westerner in the cabinet. Daniel S. Lamont served as Cleveland's private secretary, becoming one of the most important individuals in the administration.
Marriage and children
Cleveland entered the White House as a bachelor, and his sister Rose Cleveland acted as hostess for the first two years of his administration. On June 2, 1886, Cleveland married Frances Folsom in the Blue Room at the White House. Though Cleveland had supervised Frances's upbringing after her father's death, the public took no exception to the match. At 21 years, Frances Folsom Cleveland was the youngest First Lady in history, and the public soon warmed to her beauty and warm personality.Reforms and civil service
Presidential appointments until now were typically filled under the spoils system. However 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. Later in his term, as his fellow Democrats chafed at being excluded from the patronage, Cleveland began to replace more of the partisan Republican officeholders with Democrats; this was especially the case with policy-making positions. 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. During his first term, Cleveland also expanded the number of federal positions subject to the merit system from 16,000 to 27,000. Due to Cleveland's and Harrison's efforts, between 1885 and 1897, the percentage of federal employees protected by the Pendleton Act rose from twelve percent to forty percent. Nonetheless, many Mugwumps were disappointed by Cleveland's unwillingness to promote a truly nonpartisan civil service.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 resisted the Senate's attempts to enforce the act, and invoked executive privilege in refusing to hand over documents related to appointments. Despite criticism from reformers like Carl Schurz, Cleveland's stance proved popular with the public. Republican Senator George Frisbie Hoar proposed a bill to repeal the Tenure of Office Act, and Cleveland signed the repeal into law in March 1887.
In 1889, Cleveland signed into law a bill that elevated the Department of Agriculture to the cabinet level, and Norman Jay Coleman became the first United States Secretary of Agriculture. Cleveland angered railroad investors by ordering an investigation of Western lands they held by government grant. Secretary of the Interior 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. The lands were forfeited, resulting in the return of approximately.