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Stephen Grover Cleveland ( March 18, 1837 - June 24
, 1908) was the 22nd ( 1885 - 1889 ) and 24th ( 1893
- 1897 ) President of the United States, and the
only president to serve two non-consecutive terms.
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Order: |
22nd
President
24th President |
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Term of
Office: |
March 4 ,
1885 - March 4 , 1889
March 4 , 1893 - March 4 , 1897 |
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Followed: |
Chester A.
Arthur ( 1885 )
Benjamin Harrison ( 1893 ) |
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Succeeded
by: |
Benjamin
Harrison ( 1889 )
William McKinley ( 1897 ) |
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Date of
Birth |
March 18 ,
1837 |
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Place of
Birth: |
Caldwell ,
New Jersey |
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Date of
Death: |
June 24 ,
1908 |
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Place of
Death: |
Princeton
, New Jersey |
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First
Ladies : |
Rose
Cleveland (sister)
Frances Cleveland (wife) |
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Profession
: |
lawyer |
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Political
party : |
Democrat |
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Vice
President : |
Thomas A.
Hendricks ( 1885 , died in office )
Adlai E. Stevenson ( 1893 - 1897 ) |
Biography
One of nine children
of a Presbyterian minister, Cleveland was born in
Caldwell, New Jersey in 1837. He was raised in
upstate New York. As a lawyer in Buffalo, he became
notable for his single-minded concentration upon
whatever task faced him.
At
44, he emerged into a political prominence that
carried him to the White House in three years.
Running as a reformer, he was elected Mayor of
Buffalo in 1881, and later, Governor of New York.
Cleveland won the Presidency with the combined
support of Democrats and reform Republicans, the "Mugwumps,"
who disliked the record of his opponent James Blaine
of Maine .
A
bachelor, Cleveland was ill at ease at first with
all the comforts of the White House. "I must go to
dinner," he wrote a friend, "but I wish it was to
eat a pickled herring, a Swiss cheese and a chop at
Louis' instead of the French stuff I shall find." In
June 1886 Cleveland married 21-year-old Frances
Folsom; he was the first President to be married
while in office, and only President to be married in
the White House.
Cleveland vigorously pursued a policy barring
special favors to any economic group. Vetoing a bill
to appropriate $10,000 to distribute seed grain
among drought-stricken farmers in Texas, he wrote: "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
also vetoed many private pension bills to American
Civil War veterans whose claims were fraudulent.
When Congress, pressured by the Grand Army of the
Republic, passed a bill granting pensions for
disabilities not caused by military service,
Cleveland vetoed it, too.
He
angered the railroads by ordering an investigation
of western lands they held by Government grant. He
forced them to return 81,000,000 acres. He also
signed the Interstate Commerce Act, the first law
attempting Federal regulation of the railroads.
In
December 1887 he called on Congress to reduce high
protective tariffs. Told that he had given
Republicans an effective issue for the campaign of
1888 , he retorted, "What is the use of being
elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?"
But Cleveland was defeated in 1888; although he won
a larger popular majority than the Republican
candidate Benjamin Harrison, he received fewer
electoral votes.
Elected again in 1892, Cleveland faced an acute
depression. He dealt directly with the Treasury
crisis rather than with business failures, farm
mortgage foreclosures, and unemployment. He obtained
repeal of the mildly inflationary Sherman Silver
Purchase Act and, with the aid of Wall Street,
maintained the Treasury's gold reserve.
When railroad strikers in Chicago violated an
injunction, Cleveland sent Federal troops to enforce
it. "If it takes the entire army and navy of the
United States to deliver a post card in Chicago," he
thundered, "that card will be delivered." Cleveland
also forced Great Britain to accept arbitration of a
disputed boundary in Venezuela.
Cleveland ran for the Democratic nomination in 1896,
but the Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan.
After leaving the White House, Cleveland lived in
retirement in Princeton, New Jersey. He died in
1908.
Cleveland's portrait was on the U.S. $1000 bill from
1928 to 1946.
Supreme Court appointments
-
Lucius Quintus C.
Lamar - 1888
-
Melville Weston
Fuller - Chief Justice - 1888
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Edward Douglass
White - 1894
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Rufus Wheeler
Peckham - 1896
Significant events during presidencies
-
American
Federation of Labor is created (1886)
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Haymarket Riot
(1886)
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Wabash Case
(1886)
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Interstate
Commerce Act (1887)
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Dawes Act (1887)
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Homestead Strike
(1892)
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Omaha Populist
Convention (1892)
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Panic of 1893
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Wilson-Gorman
Tariff (1894)
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Coxey's Army
(1894)
-
United States v.
E. C. Knight Co. (1895)
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