Grover Cleveland’s Nonconsecutive Terms

Every list of the American presidents comes with an asterisk. There have been 46 administrations, but only 45 men have served as president. How can this be? The cause is Grover Cleveland, who served two nonconsecutive terms as our 22nd and 24th president. While Cleveland’s feat created an inconvenience that historians must deal with until the end of time, it also tells us a lot about the state of American politics in the Gilded Age. High partisanship, economic instability, and rampant government corruption. As we face the potential for another nonconsecutive presidential term, could there be any parallels between the Democratic Party of the late-1800s and the Republicans today? I think there might be!

To the Victor, Go the Spoils

By virtue of winning the Civil War, the Republican Party earned an easy campaign tactic to use against the traitorous Democrats. “Waving the bloody shirt” allowed them to dominate national politics during the Reconstruction Era. President Ulysses S. Grant used the federal government, as best he could, to protect the rights of former slaves in the South. Unfortunately, his administration was also known for a multitude of corruption scandals. Bribes involving postal route contracts, railroad financing, and import duties tarnished the Republicans’ reputation. This allowed Democrats to slowly build a new coalition, particularly in major cities, where new immigrant populations provided a fresh pool of voters.

Voters’ demand for government reform culminated in the election of 1884, which pitted former Secretary of State James Blaine against the Democratic Governor of New York, Grover Cleveland. Both candidates were known as reformers, but as the campaign went on, they also faced scandals of their own. Blaine’s involvement in the railroad scandal was relitigated with the release of additional letters detailing the bribes he accepted.¹ His parting instructions to “burn this letter” became a rallying cry for Democrats. Cleveland had a much cleaner record thanks to his short time in politics, but the revelation of an illegitimate child soiled his image. Republican opponents goaded him with the chant, “Ma, Ma, where’s my pa?” Ultimately, voters decided that Cleveland’s personal failings were not as serious as Blaine’s political ones. The mustachioed New Yorker won the extremely close election thanks to a few thousand votes in his home state.

Cleveland-Harrison-Cleveland

Despite the high salience of government reform during the 1884 election, it was Cleveland’s economic conservatism that defined his presidency. At 414, he set a record for the most bills vetoed in a single term. But reducing government spending came at a cost. Cleveland made lots of enemies by blocking new legislation, the most consequential of which were western farmers. The President vetoed aid to farmers in Texas struggling through a drought. More importantly, he was a vocal proponent of the Gold Standard — the idea that the value of the country’s currency should be directly tied to the amount of gold held by the federal government. Farmers, who historically accumulated a lot of debt, called for the expansion of silver coinage and paper money, which were far easier for them to obtain. “Bourbon Democrats,” like Cleveland, warned that this would destabilize the economy.

In the 1888 presidential election, Cleveland was challenged by Benjamin Harrison, a Republican senator from Indiana, and grandson of the short-tenured President William Henry Harrison. In accordance with his conservative personality, Cleveland chose not to actively campaign, believing it was beneath the president. Harrison and his supporters focused their attacks on the President’s opposition to protective tariffs. This helped them win the support of big business and allowed them to paint Democrats as friendly to British importers, dividing the critical Democratic constituency of Irish immigrants. This time, Cleveland failed to win New York, and thus the electoral college. Although the Democrat won the popular vote, Harrison took the presidency.

As president, Harrison was quick to reverse course and pass lots of legislation. What became known as the “Billion Dollar Congress” expanded disability pensions for Civil War veterans, strengthened the Navy, and passed some of the nation’s first environmental protection laws. In order to appease farmers, Harrison signed the Silver Purchase Act, dramatically increasing the amount of silver purchased by the federal government each month.

Cleveland mostly stayed out of politics in the immediate aftermath of his election loss. But, as the only living Democratic former president, he still held a lot of power within his party. Despite some internal opposition, Cleveland was able to secure the Democratic nomination on the first ballot at the 1892 convention. As the silver issue gained prominence, Cleveland’s hard money views earned him more support from bankers, evening the financial playing field for the campaign. Despite his concessions to farmers, Harrison also faced a third-party challenge from the Populist Party in the West. In yet another close election, Cleveland was able to, once again, win the popular vote and the electoral college.² He moved back into the White House in 1893.

The Cross of Gold

Cleveland re-entered office while the nation was in the midst of a major economic depression. The Panic of 1893 was largely the result of changing international markets, but the Silver Purchase Act also made government money scarce. The President took the opportunity to reaffirm his belief in economic conservatism by refusing to provide aid to struggling farmers and laborers. His eventual repeal of the Silver Purchase Act supercharged the division within the Democratic Party, as economy plodded along.

At the 1896 Democratic National Convention, populist farmers led an insurgency. They rallied behind Nebraska politician William Jennings Bryan as their nominee. In his electric speech, Bryan warned that the US should not be crucified on a “cross of gold.” While he would go on to lose the general election to Republican William McKinley, the Democratic Party would never be the same. Bryan set the stage for a progressive movement that would materialize in the presidencies of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Just a few decades after Cleveland’s term(s) in office, the Democratic Party was virtually unrecognizable.

#47?

Cleveland is not remembered as a good president. That’s not inherently due to his nonconsecutive terms, but they do point to a party in disarray. The Democratic Party of the Gilded Age was transitioning from the party of southern slaveowners to the party of populist farmers. Cleveland won his party’s nomination three times because there were no other national figures to challenge him. And while he himself was not a product of populism, his time in office was defied by it. His withered party was ripe for a radical realignment. Bryan’s movement gave a voice to poor farmers in an era of intense corruption by businessmen and politicians. Today’s Republican Party might view itself in similar terms. But populism mixed with nationalism produces something quite different than what the Silverites symbolized.³ Rather than wanting to expand access to wealth, their approach is to ensure that only the right people can obtain wealth. The result is a movement based on grievance and discrimination, with far more sinister consequences.

1. A former secretary of state plagued by the untimely release of personal correspondence during an extremely close election? Sounds like another post idea! ↩︎
2. Cleveland is one of three presidents to have won the popular vote in three separate elections — the others being Andrew Jackson and Franklin Roosevelt. ↩︎
3. That said, the Democratic Party was still happy to appease racists for several more decades. ↩︎

Images
I. Grover Cleveland, 1899 — Anders Zorn, National Portrait Gallery / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
II. Another Voice for Cleveland, 1884 — Frank Beard, Library of Congress / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
III. Billion Dollar Congress, 1892 — Puck Magazine / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain
IV. Bryan After Speech, 1900 — William Robinson Leigh, McClure’s Magazine / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain