The first Democrat elected after the Civil War, Grover Cleveland was the only President to leave the White House and return for a second term four years later.
One of nine children of a Presbyterian minister, Cleveland was born in New Jersey in 1837 and raised in upstate New York. As a lawyer in Buffalo, he became notable for his single-minded concentration. Running as a reformer, he was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and later, governor of New York. He first won the presidency in 1884 with the combined support of Democrats and reform Republicans known as the “Mugwumps.”
After losing the presidency to Benjamin Harrison in 1888, he was returned to office in 1892. As the 24th President, Cleveland faced an economic depression. He dealt directly with the financial 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 Department’s gold reserve.
When railroad strikers in Chicago violated an injunction, Cleveland sent federal troops to enforce it. His blunt treatment of the railroad strikers stirred the pride of many Americans, as did the vigorous way he forced Great Britain to accept arbitration of a disputed boundary in Venezuela. But overall, his policies during the depression were unpopular, and in 1896, his party instead nominated William Jennings Bryan. After leaving the White House the second time, Cleveland lived in retirement in Princeton, New Jersey, and died in 1908.
Coinage Legislation under President Glover Cleveland (second term)
Act of March 3, 1893 — Sundry civil appropriation law (authorizing coinage of 40,000 souvenir quarter-dollars for the Board of Lady Managers World’s Columbian Exposition)
Act of November 1, 1893 — An act to repeal a part of an act approved July 14, 1890, entitled “An Act directing the purchase of silver bullion and the issue of Treasury notes thereon, and for other purposes”
