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Grover Cleveland: Just Obey the Constitution
A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland
by Troy Senik, New York: Threshold Editions, 2022, 323 pages, hardcover.
The New American | Book Review
Feb. 23, 2023
When asked after retiring from public life how a man of his limited education had been able to succeed as president, Grover Cleveland explained that the Constitution “is so simple and so strong that all a man has to do is to obey it and do his best and he gets along.”
That sums up the political philosophy of the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, and also of this biography by Troy Senik. It is clear that Senik is greatly sympathetic to Cleveland’s philosophy, which the author describes as “classical liberal.” Cleveland was a man who favored limited government, and that is the theme of this excellent account of the life of a president we could do well to have in the White House once again.
Senik offers an abundance of historical anecdotes that provide pleasure for those who love the study of history and the individuals who made it. For example, Cleveland once was a teaching colleague in a school for the blind with Fanny Crosby — perhaps the greatest gospel hymnist in American history. Cleveland was the son of a Presbyterian minister, but Cleveland was only an irregular churchgoer as an adult until his retirement from public life, when he returned to the faith of his youth.
Cleveland had a limited formal education. He did not go to law school, but became a lawyer through the old practice of “reading the law” — serving as an apprentice to a lawyer. He got into politics as the Democratic candidate for sheriff in Buffalo, New York. The sheriff’s office was notorious for corruption, and Cleveland ended that during his one year in the position.
After serving as sheriff, Cleveland returned to his law practice. After his partner and best friend, Oscar Folsom, died in a carriage accident, Folsom’s widow, Emma, and 11-year-old daughter, Frances, became his wards, which meant he handled their financial affairs.
Cleveland did not seek public office again for eight years, refusing to do so until October 1881, when the local Democratic Party needed someone to run for mayor of Buffalo. In his acceptance speech for the nomination, Cleveland summed up his ideal of public service: “A public office is a public trust.”
As he had done with the sheriff’s office, he cleaned up corruption in the mayor’s office. He also used the veto power to reject every attempt for new spending, including an appropriation for the Fourth of July festivities of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — the politically powerful organization of Union veterans. Cleveland made a personal donation equal to 10 percent of the GAR’s budget request, then led an effort to raise the rest through private funds. Senik notes, “In the end, the organization raised 40 percent more than it had requested from the city treasury.”
This story illustrates Cleveland’s aversion to spending government funds except for legitimate purposes. In a speech at Princeton on the occasion of the college’s 150th anniversary in 1896, near the end of his presidency, Cleveland condemned “selfish interest [that] seeks undue private benefit through government aid.”
While mayor, Cleveland opposed paying for sewage repairs with bonds, arguing that it was cheaper to do so without incurring debt. In the end, the cost of the project was negotiated down to about one-half of the lowest bid.
After only a year in the mayor’s office, Cleveland was elected governor of New York in 1882, by the largest margin in history to that time. As governor of a swing state, it was not surprising that the Democratic Party turned to him in the 1884 election for president.
The 1884 campaign is remembered for accusations against the character of both Cleveland and his Republican opponent, James Blaine. The charge that Cleveland had fathered a child with a widowed woman, Maria Halpin, was bad enough, but then a newspaper said that he had raped the woman. Halpin, however, denounced the rape story as a lie.
By this time, Cleveland had developed a strong distaste for the press. According to Senik, when Cleveland was governor, The New York Times “cited an excursion to Newport, Rhode Island, as proof that he was overly fond of junketeering.” Cleveland “replied incredulously that he hadn’t even made the trip.” It would not be the last time that The New York Times printed stories that were less than accurate.
Cleveland won the presidency, despite all the negative press, by taking New York by 1,149 votes and Connecticut by 1,300 votes.
As president, Cleveland continued to implement his limited-government philosophy into policy, but now he had new issues to consider that he had not had to deal with as a governor, such as the debate over the gold standard and foreign policy.
Cleveland was a firm believer in “sound money,” and to him that meant defending the gold standard. Eventually, his Democratic Party would reject him over this issue more than any other, but Cleveland never wavered. In his day, attacks upon sound money came from those who hoped to cause inflation by increased coinage of silver, while in our day it comes from federal spending, debt, and increasing the money supply through actions of the Federal Reserve System.
Keeping with his philosophy of limiting government spending, in 1887 Cleveland vetoed a bill to provide seeds for a drought-stricken part of Texas. He explained why in his veto message:
Another issue that we still struggle with today is the push for intervention into the affairs of other nations. Cleveland summed up his noninterventionist philosophy early in his presidency:
While he generally admired his second successor, Republican William McKinley, he expressed disappointment that President McKinley had allowed himself to be “seduced by imperialism.” When McKinley agreed to annex Hawaii — which Cleveland had refused to do a few years earlier — Cleveland said, “I am ashamed of the whole affair.”
One of the most difficult aspects of the Cleveland presidency was dealing with the aforementioned GAR. The GAR was constantly lobbying for increased pension benefits — the second-largest expenditure in the federal budget during the last part of the 19th century, which in many ways paved the way for the expansion of the federal welfare state of the 20th and 21st centuries. After he vetoed private pension bills — grants to individual veterans by Congress that had been rejected through the normal application process — he was castigated as some sort of “closet Confederate.”
The GAR’s opposition contributed greatly to Cleveland’s defeat for reelection in 1888, but he was able to regain the White House in 1892. Since his two terms were separated by Republican Benjamin Harrison’s tenure, Cleveland is classified as both the 22nd and the 24th president.
Senik covers all the political battles of the Cleveland presidency, as well as the personal life of Grover Cleveland, including his marriage to Frances Folsom — the 21-year-old daughter of his dead law partner — when he was 49 years old. Cleveland had bought Frances her first baby carriage. The wedding was the first ever in the White House itself, and the marriage produced multiple children, including their first daughter, popularly known as “Baby” Ruth — eventually the name of the candy bar.
Frances provided an insight into her husband’s tender side. Grover overheard his young daughters mention, Senik wrote, that a “little girl in their class had come up empty when the students received Valentines. The former president of the United States … had his cheeks stained with tears at the idea of a child’s heartbreak. A valentine bearing the name of Grover Cleveland was delivered to the little girl’s home by messenger.”
When Cleveland’s death came on June 24, 1908, his last recorded words were, “I have tried so hard to do right.”
Senik has provided us with a good biography of the life of Grover Cleveland.
A Man of Iron: The Turbulent Life and Improbable Presidency of Grover Cleveland
by Troy Senik, New York: Threshold Editions, 2022, 323 pages, hardcover.
The New American | Book Review
Feb. 23, 2023
When asked after retiring from public life how a man of his limited education had been able to succeed as president, Grover Cleveland explained that the Constitution “is so simple and so strong that all a man has to do is to obey it and do his best and he gets along.”
That sums up the political philosophy of the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, and also of this biography by Troy Senik. It is clear that Senik is greatly sympathetic to Cleveland’s philosophy, which the author describes as “classical liberal.” Cleveland was a man who favored limited government, and that is the theme of this excellent account of the life of a president we could do well to have in the White House once again.
Senik offers an abundance of historical anecdotes that provide pleasure for those who love the study of history and the individuals who made it. For example, Cleveland once was a teaching colleague in a school for the blind with Fanny Crosby — perhaps the greatest gospel hymnist in American history. Cleveland was the son of a Presbyterian minister, but Cleveland was only an irregular churchgoer as an adult until his retirement from public life, when he returned to the faith of his youth.
Cleveland had a limited formal education. He did not go to law school, but became a lawyer through the old practice of “reading the law” — serving as an apprentice to a lawyer. He got into politics as the Democratic candidate for sheriff in Buffalo, New York. The sheriff’s office was notorious for corruption, and Cleveland ended that during his one year in the position.
After serving as sheriff, Cleveland returned to his law practice. After his partner and best friend, Oscar Folsom, died in a carriage accident, Folsom’s widow, Emma, and 11-year-old daughter, Frances, became his wards, which meant he handled their financial affairs.
Cleveland did not seek public office again for eight years, refusing to do so until October 1881, when the local Democratic Party needed someone to run for mayor of Buffalo. In his acceptance speech for the nomination, Cleveland summed up his ideal of public service: “A public office is a public trust.”
As he had done with the sheriff’s office, he cleaned up corruption in the mayor’s office. He also used the veto power to reject every attempt for new spending, including an appropriation for the Fourth of July festivities of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) — the politically powerful organization of Union veterans. Cleveland made a personal donation equal to 10 percent of the GAR’s budget request, then led an effort to raise the rest through private funds. Senik notes, “In the end, the organization raised 40 percent more than it had requested from the city treasury.”
This story illustrates Cleveland’s aversion to spending government funds except for legitimate purposes. In a speech at Princeton on the occasion of the college’s 150th anniversary in 1896, near the end of his presidency, Cleveland condemned “selfish interest [that] seeks undue private benefit through government aid.”
While mayor, Cleveland opposed paying for sewage repairs with bonds, arguing that it was cheaper to do so without incurring debt. In the end, the cost of the project was negotiated down to about one-half of the lowest bid.
After only a year in the mayor’s office, Cleveland was elected governor of New York in 1882, by the largest margin in history to that time. As governor of a swing state, it was not surprising that the Democratic Party turned to him in the 1884 election for president.
The 1884 campaign is remembered for accusations against the character of both Cleveland and his Republican opponent, James Blaine. The charge that Cleveland had fathered a child with a widowed woman, Maria Halpin, was bad enough, but then a newspaper said that he had raped the woman. Halpin, however, denounced the rape story as a lie.
By this time, Cleveland had developed a strong distaste for the press. According to Senik, when Cleveland was governor, The New York Times “cited an excursion to Newport, Rhode Island, as proof that he was overly fond of junketeering.” Cleveland “replied incredulously that he hadn’t even made the trip.” It would not be the last time that The New York Times printed stories that were less than accurate.
Cleveland won the presidency, despite all the negative press, by taking New York by 1,149 votes and Connecticut by 1,300 votes.
As president, Cleveland continued to implement his limited-government philosophy into policy, but now he had new issues to consider that he had not had to deal with as a governor, such as the debate over the gold standard and foreign policy.
Cleveland was a firm believer in “sound money,” and to him that meant defending the gold standard. Eventually, his Democratic Party would reject him over this issue more than any other, but Cleveland never wavered. In his day, attacks upon sound money came from those who hoped to cause inflation by increased coinage of silver, while in our day it comes from federal spending, debt, and increasing the money supply through actions of the Federal Reserve System.
Keeping with his philosophy of limiting government spending, in 1887 Cleveland vetoed a bill to provide seeds for a drought-stricken part of Texas. He explained why in his veto message:
I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constitution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in no manner properly related to the public service or benefit. A prevalent tendency to disregard the limited mission of this power and duty should, I think, be steadfastly resisted.… 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.
Another issue that we still struggle with today is the push for intervention into the affairs of other nations. Cleveland summed up his noninterventionist philosophy early in his presidency:
The genius of our institutions … dictate the scrupulous avoidance of any departure from that foreign policy commended by the history, the traditions, and the prosperity of our republic.… It is the policy of peace suitable to our interests. It is the policy of neutrality, rejecting any share in foreign broils and ambitions upon other continents.… It is the policy of Monroe and of Washington and Jefferson — Peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliance with none.
While he generally admired his second successor, Republican William McKinley, he expressed disappointment that President McKinley had allowed himself to be “seduced by imperialism.” When McKinley agreed to annex Hawaii — which Cleveland had refused to do a few years earlier — Cleveland said, “I am ashamed of the whole affair.”
One of the most difficult aspects of the Cleveland presidency was dealing with the aforementioned GAR. The GAR was constantly lobbying for increased pension benefits — the second-largest expenditure in the federal budget during the last part of the 19th century, which in many ways paved the way for the expansion of the federal welfare state of the 20th and 21st centuries. After he vetoed private pension bills — grants to individual veterans by Congress that had been rejected through the normal application process — he was castigated as some sort of “closet Confederate.”
The GAR’s opposition contributed greatly to Cleveland’s defeat for reelection in 1888, but he was able to regain the White House in 1892. Since his two terms were separated by Republican Benjamin Harrison’s tenure, Cleveland is classified as both the 22nd and the 24th president.
Senik covers all the political battles of the Cleveland presidency, as well as the personal life of Grover Cleveland, including his marriage to Frances Folsom — the 21-year-old daughter of his dead law partner — when he was 49 years old. Cleveland had bought Frances her first baby carriage. The wedding was the first ever in the White House itself, and the marriage produced multiple children, including their first daughter, popularly known as “Baby” Ruth — eventually the name of the candy bar.
Frances provided an insight into her husband’s tender side. Grover overheard his young daughters mention, Senik wrote, that a “little girl in their class had come up empty when the students received Valentines. The former president of the United States … had his cheeks stained with tears at the idea of a child’s heartbreak. A valentine bearing the name of Grover Cleveland was delivered to the little girl’s home by messenger.”
When Cleveland’s death came on June 24, 1908, his last recorded words were, “I have tried so hard to do right.”
Senik has provided us with a good biography of the life of Grover Cleveland.
