Grover Cleveland

Abstract

Abstract As a whole, the 1880s were rocky years and, during his first term, the strictly constitutional Grover Cleveland oversaw a merely average economy. It prospered during some months and years, but not in others. Cleveland was a sternly ethical but inexperienced and poorly educated politician who entered the White House during the apex of the corrupt spoils system and on the tail of the smoldering depression of 1881–1885. He saw little role for presidents, or governments, in managing the economy. Before entering office, he took extraordinary action to ward off a brewing dollar panic. Thereafter he preferred to mostly just cheer or harangue from the sidelines. Many Americans, including Cleveland himself, blamed government corruption for the nation’s economic problems, which by now included recurring financial crises, economic recessions, labor strikes, monopoly abuses, and unnecessary trade protectionism. Each of these evils seemed to flow from the spoils system. Cleveland’s solution was to hark back to pre–Civil War democratic ideals: an honest and limited federal government, run with business efficiency and strictly according to the Constitution. And if government must act, the intervention should be objective, nonpartisan, and minimal. Cleveland’s numerous vetoes were perhaps his most assertive use of executive power. He used them to strike down hundreds of spending bills that benefited individuals or special interests. But his inflexible attachment to minimal government and a restrained presidency rendered him incapable of actions that might have better grown the economy and prevented the crises that would ruin his second term.