Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland was born Stephen Grover Cleveland on March 18, 1837, in Caldwell, New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the eastern United States on the Atlantic Ocean, bordered by New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the Hudson River forming its northeastern boundary and the Delaware River its western boundary; its capital is Trenton and its largest city is Newark. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1787, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 9,288,994.Open the full entry, to Richard Falley Cleveland, a Presbyterian minister, and Ann Neal.⁠[1]

He was the fifth of nine children; his YaleYale UniversityYale University is a research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Its predecessor, the Collegiate School, received a charter in 1701. Trustees chose New Haven in 1716; the institution became Yale College in 1718 and Yale University in 1887. Yale provides undergraduate, graduate and professional education and has 14 undergraduate residential colleges. As of October 2026, its president was Maurie McInnis, who took office in July 2024. In 2026, Yale expanded aid for incoming undergraduates and celebrated its 325th anniversary.Open the full entry-educated father was nearly impoverished.⁠[2][3]

The house where he was born, built in 1832, was the manse of the local Presbyterian church; the Cleveland family lived there from 1834 to 1841, and in 1841 the family moved to upstate New York.⁠[4][3]

After his father died in 1853, he left school to work and support his mother and sisters. He taught at the New York Institution for the Blind in New York City, then clerked at a law firm in Buffalo, and without attending law school was admitted to the bar in 1859.⁠[1][3]

In 1862 he was elected a city ward supervisor, and in 1863 he became assistant district attorney of Erie County, New York.⁠[3][1]

The Conscription Act of 1863 required men aged 20 to 45 to register and allowed exemption for $300 or a substitute. When drafted, Cleveland hired George Beniski, a Polish immigrant, to serve in his place in the 76th New York Infantry so that he could care for his mother; the arrangement was legal, but political opponents later used it against him.⁠[3][1]

In 1870 he was elected sheriff of Erie County, a post he held until 1873, when he returned to practicing law.⁠[2]

In 1881 the Buffalo City Democratic Committee chose him to run for mayor, and he won in an upset, serving from 1881 to 1882. In office he exposed corruption and vetoed spending measures he considered wasteful or corrupt, earning the nickname “veto mayor.”⁠[2][5][1]

In 1882 he won the Democratic nomination for governor without the support of Tammany Hall and defeated his Republican opponent by more than 200,000 votes, serving as Governor of New York from 1883 to 1885.⁠[1][5]

As governor he used the veto frequently, including on measures with wide public support, and challenged Tammany Hall; he also worked on reforms alongside the Republican Theodore RooseveltTheodore RooseveltTheodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) was an American Republican politician, writer, naturalist, and soldier who served as the 26th President of the United States from 1901 to 1909 and received the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.Open the full entry.⁠[1][6][3]

In 1884 he won the Democratic presidential nomination; his opponent was the Republican nominee, James G. Blaine of Maine. The Mugwumps, a reform-minded Republican faction, opposed Blaine and supported Cleveland.⁠[7][3]

During the campaign Republicans charged that he had fathered a child out of wedlock about ten years earlier. He admitted an affair with Maria Halpin and agreed to provide support, though he was unsure the child was his, and instructed Democratic leaders to “tell the truth.” Late in the campaign a Blaine supporter called the Democrats the party of “rum, Romanism, and rebellion,” a remark aimed at Irish Catholics, which Blaine did not disavow.⁠[1]

Cleveland received 4,879,507 popular votes (48.5%) to Blaine’s 4,850,293 (48.2%), and won the electoral vote 219 to 182. He carried New York’s electoral votes, and with them the election, by fewer than 1,200 votes.⁠[7][1]

On March 4, 1885, he took the oath of office as the 22nd President of the United States on the East Portico of the U.S. Capitol, administered by Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, using a Bible his mother had given him at 15. He was the first Democrat to occupy the White House since James BuchananJames BuchananJames Buchanan (1791–1868) was an American Democratic politician and diplomat who served as secretary of state (1845–1849) and as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861.Open the full entry.⁠[8][9]

Vice President Thomas A. Hendricks, sworn in on March 3, died on November 25, 1885, and the vice presidency remained vacant for the rest of the term.⁠[8][10]

He emphasized appointments on merit and delegated authority to capable cabinet members; continuing Chester A. ArthurChester A. ArthurChester A. Arthur (1829–1886) was an American lawyer and politician who served as collector of the Port of New York, became vice president in 1881 and, after the assassination of James A. Garfield that year, succeeded him as the 21st president of the United States, serving until 1885.Open the full entry’s move away from patronage, he supported the Civil Service Commission and helped double the number of merit-based federal positions.⁠[9][3]

He used the veto often, rejecting 414 bills in his first term, among them hundreds of Civil War veterans’ pension bills he considered fraudulent and a drought-relief bill for Western farmers, which he believed was not a federal responsibility.⁠[10][9]

He nullified fraudulent grants of about 80 million acres (30 million hectares) of Western public land, and he forced Republicans to back down when they claimed that the Tenure of Office Act of 1867 required congressional consent to dismiss officials.⁠[1][9]

He sought repeal of the Bland-Allison Silver Purchase Act of 1878 and lower tariffs, efforts that were largely ineffective; as a hard-money advocate he opposed expanding the money supply with silver, which put him at odds with Southern and Western voters.⁠[9]

Opposing territorial expansion and entangling alliances, he withdrew from Senate consideration the Frelinghuysen-Zavala Treaty, which would have given the United States the right to build a canal in Nicaragua jointly owned with Nicaragua. In 1885 he sent a small detachment of Marines to Panama, then a province of Colombia, to help suppress a rebellion.⁠[11]

In his first term he dealt with North Atlantic fishing rights off Canada and Newfoundland, the disputed boundary between AlaskaAlaskaAlaska is the largest U.S. state by area and borders Canada to the east; its capital is Juneau and its largest city is Anchorage. Alaska was admitted to the Union on January 3, 1959, as the 49th state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 733,391.Open the full entry and British Columbia, and the shrinking fur-seal population in the Bering Sea. When Germany tried to install a puppet monarch in Samoa, he sent three warships to Samoan waters, leading to a tripartite protectorate signed by Germany, Britain, and the United States; after leaving office he criticized the arrangement as an entangling alliance with European monarchies.⁠[11]

On June 2, 1886, he married 21-year-old Frances Folsom, the daughter of his former law partner and his ward, becoming the first president married in the White House.⁠[12][6][13]

The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 created the Interstate Commerce Commission, the first federal regulatory agency in the United States.⁠[1]

When he took office, about 204,000 Native Americans lived on 171 reservations covering 135 million acres; he favored assimilation through education, private land ownership, and federal guidance, and he supported and signed the Dawes Act that same year. It allowed the president to allot reservation land to individuals, with surplus land going to the public domain. The Miller Center’s essay judges the policy disastrous, costing Native Americans much of their land.⁠[9]

In 1888 the Democrats renominated him against the Republican Benjamin HarrisonBenjamin HarrisonBenjamin Harrison (1833–1901) was an American lawyer, soldier, and Republican politician who represented Indiana in the U.S. Senate and served as the 23rd President of the United States from 1889 to 1893.Open the full entry. The central issue was the protective tariff: Cleveland opposed high tariffs as unnecessary taxes on consumers, while Harrison defended protectionism; Republicans also attacked his vetoes of veterans’ pension bills and raised a record $3 million from manufacturers.⁠[1][7]

He won 48.6% of the popular vote to Harrison’s 47.9%, about 100,000 more votes, but lost the electoral vote 168 to 233, narrowly losing New York and IndianaIndianaIndiana is a state in the Midwestern United States; its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. It was admitted to the Union on December 11, 1816, as the 19th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 6,785,528.Open the full entry. Republicans also won majorities in both houses of Congress.⁠[7][1]

After leaving office he spent four years as a private citizen in New York City, practicing law.⁠[10][3]

In 1892 he faced Benjamin Harrison again, with James B. Weaver of Iowa running for the Populist (People’s) Party, which carried five states and won more than 8% of the vote.⁠[7]

Cleveland won about 46% of the popular vote to Harrison’s 43%; the electoral vote was Cleveland 277, Harrison 145, and Weaver 22. Democrats also regained both houses of Congress.⁠[7]

On March 4, 1893, he took the oath as the 24th president on the East Portico of the Capitol, administered by Chief Justice Melville W. Fuller; snow and cold kept the crowd small, and many planned events were canceled. Vice President Adlai E. Stevenson had been sworn in on March 3.⁠[14]

The Panic of 1893 struck shortly after he took office, and the ensuing recession lasted until 1897. The Miller Center’s essay calls it the most severe depression in U.S. history to that time: by 1894 nearly 18 percent of workers were unemployed, one bank in ten had closed, and railroad construction had fallen by 50 percent.⁠[3][9]

He blamed the depression on the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which required the Treasury to buy 4.5 million ounces of silver a month; by 1893 the gold value of the silver dollar had fallen to 60 cents. In 1893 he urged Congress to repeal the act, and the country returned to the gold standard. The repeal fight split the Democratic Party and cost him the support of Western and Southern Democrats.⁠[9][5][10]

During the depression he refused government aid and opposed government-sponsored public works.⁠[10][9]

Believing that the Harrison administration and American sugar planters had conspired in the 1893 revolution that overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy, he pressed the revolutionary government to restore Queen Liliuokalani. When the planters threatened armed resistance and the queen refused to grant amnesty to the revolutionary leaders, he turned the problem over to Congress.⁠[11]

During his second term he found a lesion in his mouth that doctors diagnosed as cancer, and he kept it secret to avoid alarming the public and the financial markets. In June 1893 doctors removed it aboard a friend’s yacht, and a second, brief operation followed in mid-July; for the rest of his life he wore an artificial jaw on his upper left side. The public learned of the episode only in 1917, almost ten years after his death, when one of his doctors published an article about it.⁠[13]

Jacob Coxey of Ohio led a march of unemployed workers, known as Coxey’s Army, to Washington, D.C., to seek relief through public works; thousands set out and about 500 arrived, and Cleveland did not change his position.⁠[9]

In 1894, 150,000 railroad workers struck in support of the Pullman car workers near Chicago. Over the objections of Illinois Governor John Altgeld, he sent federal troops to Chicago to end the strike, alienating many Northern workers and the unions.⁠[9][3][10]

After the silver purchase repeal, a run on government gold followed; between 1894 and 1896 he authorized four bond issues, relying on the investment banker J. P. Morgan, which drew criticism that he favored Wall Street.⁠[9][10]

In the 1894 congressional elections the Democrats lost everywhere except the Deep South, which the Miller Center’s essay calls the greatest voter realignment since the Civil War; a Missouri Democrat described it as “the greatest slaughter of innocents since Herod.”⁠[9][6]

Britain, which had held British Guiana since the early 1800s, claimed the Orinoco River and a large interior region reaching into Venezuela. In 1895 he invoked the Monroe Doctrine in the dispute: after Venezuela asked the United States to arbitrate, he sent the so-called “twenty-inch gun” note threatening war and dispatched naval vessels to confront British warships near Venezuela, and Britain agreed to arbitration.⁠[11][5]

The Miller Center’s essay notes that historians debate his motives and the outcome, but that his clear legacy was reviving the Monroe Doctrine as the basis of U.S. policy in the hemisphere.⁠[11]

When an insurrection against Spanish rule broke out in Cuba, he remained neutral, refused to support it, and urged Spain to adopt reforms leading to gradual Cuban independence. The Senate adopted resolutions urging recognition of the rebels’ belligerency, and Congress threatened to recognize Cuban independence; he replied that such a resolution would usurp presidential authority. The issue was unresolved when his second term ended.⁠[11]

In 1896 Free Silver supporters controlled the Democratic Party, which did not renominate Cleveland and chose William Jennings Bryan instead.⁠[5][4]

He left office in 1897 embittered, believing he had been betrayed by “agrarian radicals” and “Silverites” in his own party.⁠[9]

He then moved to Princeton, New Jersey, became a trustee of Princeton UniversityPrinceton UniversityPrinceton University is a private university and Ivy League member in Princeton, New Jersey. Chartered on October 22, 1746 as the College of New Jersey, it moved to Princeton in 1756 and adopted its present name in 1896. Undergraduate education leads to A.B. and B.S.E. degrees and emphasizes small-group discussion, independent research and residential college life. Graduate education spans the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering. As of October 2026, Christopher L. Eisgruber was president. Its 2026–27 operating budget was $3.407 billion, including $342 million for undergraduate aid.Open the full entry and lectured there; he also served on several corporate boards, gave public speeches, and supported his family by investing in the stock market and practicing law.⁠[15][5]

In 1904 he published Presidential Problems, which focused on some of his most controversial decisions; he never wrote an autobiography. That year his eldest daughter, Ruth, died, a loss that visibly aged him; some friends said he never fully recovered.⁠[15]

In his last years he suffered from a gastrointestinal disease complicated by heart and kidney ailments. A severe attack struck him on vacation in late March 1908, and he was rushed by automobile, in great secrecy, to Princeton. He died early on June 24, 1908, aged 71; his last words were “I have tried so hard to do right.”⁠[15][1]

He was buried two days later. Venezuela announced that its flags would fly at half-mast, and Theodore Roosevelt’s eulogy compared him to a “happy warrior.”⁠[15]

His wife, Frances Folsom Cleveland, lived from 1864 to 1947. They had five children: Ruth (1891–1904), Esther (1893–1980), Marion (1895–1977), Richard Folsom (1897–1974), and Francis Grover (1903–1995).⁠[12][13]

Frances Folsom Cleveland was one of the most popular first ladies, ranked by the Miller Center’s essay alongside Dolley Madison and Julia Tyler; scarves, ornamental bottles, postcards, and other goods bearing the couple’s faces, or hers alone, were widely sold. Cleveland disliked the press attention to his family, while she handled it gracefully.⁠[13]

In the White House he did his own paperwork, often working past midnight and sometimes until 2 or 3 a.m.; he paid his own expenses and gave up luxuries such as the presidential yacht.⁠[13]

He used patronage and party organization to win elections and opposed temperance, which won him the support of Irish, German, and Eastern European immigrants.⁠[9]

The Miller Center’s essay states that he sided with white Southerners against African American social and political equality, opposed integrated schools in New York, and opposed efforts to protect Black suffrage.⁠[9]

He first condemned “outrages” against Chinese immigrants on the West Coast but later worked to limit Chinese immigration and barred those who had left the United States to visit China from returning.⁠[9]

He avoided speaking out against woman suffrage so as not to alienate women, but he never supported a woman’s right to vote; his only stated position on women’s rights was criticism of polygamy.⁠[6][9]

Efforts to preserve his birthplace began while he was Governor of New York. The house first opened to the public in 1913; owned by the Cleveland Birthplace Memorial Association, it was bought by the State of New Jersey in 1934 and is operated as the Grover Cleveland Birthplace State Historic Site, the only house museum in the country dedicated to interpreting his life, with its first-floor rooms restored to their 1837 appearance.⁠[4]

The Miller Center’s essay holds that his record-breaking use of the veto earned him the name “guardian President,” and it sees his presidency as a stage leading to the modern presidency that began with Theodore Roosevelt.⁠[6]

Grover Cleveland Birthplace State Historic Site: Official website: https://www.nj.gov/dep/parksandforests/historic/grover_cleveland/gc_direction.htm (opens in a new window).⁠[16]