Grover Cleveland: First Inaugural Address

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

During the presidential race of 1884, Cleveland campaigned as a progressive reformer who would reorient national politics to minimize the power and influence of elites and special interests. The Republican Party selected the former secretary of state James D. Blaine as its presidential candidate. Many reformist Republicans, known as “mugwumps,” saw Blaine as corrupt, and his nomination alienated many within the party. Cleveland sought to attract the mugwumps by emphasizing his reputation as an honest politician and his record as a reformer. In one of the closest elections in U.S. history he defeated Blaine by a margin of just over twenty-five thousand votes.

In his Inaugural Address, the twenty-second U.S. president seeks to differentiate himself from previous chief executives and reaffirm his intention to reform national politics. Cleveland pledges to follow a “just and unstrained construction of the Constitution” and dutifully discharge his office. The incoming president also pledges to be a good and honest steward of public funds and calls upon the American people to keep a “vigilant watch and close scrutiny” over public servants and make “a fair and reasonable estimate of their fidelity and usefulness.” Cleveland specifically promises to review the manner in which the federal government managed public lands in the West. He further promises that his foreign policy will emphasize neutrality and that he will oppose imperialism as well as unrestricted immigration. Cleveland concludes with an assurance that he will undertake civil service reform.

Once in office, Cleveland worked to implement his pledges. He rejected the prevailing spoils system under which past presidents had filled public offices with supporters and influential party members. Instead, Cleveland retained a significant number of Republican appointees even though this angered many in the Democratic Party who hoped to gain lucrative government appointments. He used the 1883 Pendleton Civil Service Act to convert a number of federal positions from being presidential appointments to new, merit-based civil service jobs. Cleveland also reduced the overall size of the federal government and eliminated a number of positions, many of which had been created with the sole purpose of rewarding party members and supporters.

During his tenure Cleveland faced a hostile Congress. The Republican Party controlled the Senate, and many expenditure bills were passed that Cleveland opposed because he believed they were designed to benefit special interests or individuals. He vetoed more bills than any other president up to that time. Most of the measures were pension bills that would have granted government benefits to those who had served during the Civil War. Many involved requests that had been rejected by the federal Bureau of Pensions, but the affected individuals had then appealed to their congressman or senator. In line with his inaugural promise to “closely limit public expenditures to the actual needs of the Government,” Cleveland also vetoed a popular measure that would have provided $10,000 to farmers in Texas in 1887 after a drought devastated areas of the state. He argued that nothing in the Constitution granted the government the authority to use public funds to provide economic assistance to private citizens unless there was a compelling national need. Cleveland ordered a review of public lands in the West that had been granted to railroads. The railroads had originally been given rights to vast tracts of land in exchange for building new rail lines, but in many cases the companies had failed to construct the promised lines. As a result of the inquiry more than eighty-one million acres was restored to federal control.

Foreign policy under the first Cleveland administration followed the parameters laid out in the president's inaugural address. Cleveland withdrew a treaty that would have allowed the United States access to develop areas of the Congo, and he declined to pursue efforts to build a canal across Nicaragua. Under Cleveland the United States and Great Britain negotiated a long-standing fisheries dispute in the North Atlantic (although the Senate rejected the treaty). The administration did pledge to protect Samoa (where the United States had established a small naval base in 1878) from German colonialism and persuaded the German government to resolve any disputes related to the islands through an international conference.

Cleveland was unable to reform the nation's tariff system. He favored lower tariffs, an unpopular position especially in the industrial areas of the North. Tariffs dominated the 1888 presidential election. The Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison, adopted a staunch protectionist platform. Cleveland won the popular balloting but lost in the electoral college, 233 to 168.