Grover Cleveland: America’s Only Double President

today's video is brought to you by squarespace the tool to use to make a website for your brand and grow your business more about them in a bit he's america's only double president the man who took the highest office in the land lost it after one term and then came roaring back for a second even if nothing else grover cleveland's status as america's only non-consecutive president would be enough for him to be remembered it's thanks to him that joe biden is called the 46th president despite only 45 people having ever held the office yet there's more to the combined 22nd and 24th president than this piece of trivia cleveland's eight interrupted years were filled with striking firsts as the first democrat elected president between james buchanan and woodrow wilson cleveland's tenures form a remarkable interlude in the post-civil war era two bands of blue on a chart that is otherwise the deepest of red in attitude two cleveland was unique a passionate fiscal conservative he holds the distinction of being perhaps the most moderate democrat to ever leave the party sadly that modernization would wind up being the very thing that destroyed his reputation [Music] in the grand sweep of presidential history there are occasional periods of one-party dominance the democratic republicans unbeatable winning streak from 1800 to 1824 say or the new deal coalition that won fdr and harry truman combined five elections but perhaps none of these periods compares to the five decades after the civil war from lincoln's election in 1860 right the way through to the end of taft's one term in 1913 almost no democrats made it to the highest office of the two that did one andrew johnson only got there thanks to lincoln running on a unity ticket and then getting assassinated had john wilkes booth's hand trembled slightly it would have been republicans all the way with one important exception an exception who remarkably never wanted to be president anyway born stephen grover cleveland on march the 18th 1837 in new jersey the future democratic president was almost singularly unambitious a large part of that was because he couldn't afford to be as one of nine children grover cleveland who quickly dropped the stephen from his name grew up in a household on the edge of poverty his father was a presbyterian minister whose job required them to frequently move taking them to tiny ass villages in new york state although cleveland was able to attend school he didn't do so regularly by the age of 14 he was working as a store clerk just to help support the family despite his lack of wealth though the future president didn't lack dreams as a teenager his main dream was to go to hamilton college and get a serious education by 1853 it looked like this dream might come true the family had saved enough and cleveland was less than a year away from turning 17. but then god seems to have glanced down from heaven and declared that october cleveland's father died robbing the family of their main source of income the old man's passing did to cleveland's dreams what a sharp pin cruelly utilized will do to a child's balloon with college suddenly unaffordable a young man was forced to return to work with each dollar he made going to support his mum and younger siblings yet this misfortune would soon turn out to be the making of grover cleveland after a year spent teaching in a school for the blind the future president seems to have hit on a plan borrowing 25 he traveled to buffalo where his uncle had promised him a job clerking at a law firm but this wasn't just a sideways career move oh no despite his relative lack of education cleveland was determined to become a lawyer that meant four years of working like mad burning the candle not just at both ends but in the middle near the edges and just about every other conceivable place too all day long cleveland clerked all through the evening he studied law cramming like someone permanently preparing for finals and it paid off in 1858 this poor boy from the styx was admitted to the bar perhaps more importantly though the experience left cleveland with two deeply held convictions a certainty in the value of both hard work and modest living it would be these convictions that typified his white house tenure but first the young lawyer had to get through the civil war three years after cleveland passed his exams a south carolina militia opened fire on fort sumter kickstarting four long brutal years but while other future presidents would answer the call for the union army cleveland instead paid a polish immigrant to go fight in his place this was actually legal at the time still it wouldn't be a good look for cleveland being the only president from grant to mckinley who didn't either fight in the war or in chester arthur's case had logistics for the union army regardless of his level of participation though the civil war still had one major impact on cleveland's life as america burned the young man took the job of assistant district attorney of erie county unbeknownst to anyone it would be the start of cleveland's spectacular journey into politics at this stage you're probably expecting to hear how cleveland's brush with low-level politics inspired him to climb the ladder to rise to the top winning election after election until he finally won the biggest election of all which just goes to show how atypical cleveland's career was we mentioned before how the future president was almost singularly unambitious so rather than finish his tenure as assistant d.a and then set his sights higher cleveland instead finished his term then went to open a law practice with his friend oscar folsom it wasn't until 1870 that he drifted back towards politics becoming sheriff of erie county he held that position for three years before once again going back to practicing law still his short tenure as sheriff wouldn't be forgotten by cleveland or his enemies with the county's executioner often unavailable cleveland stepped in on multiple occasions as a substitute it was his hand that pulled the lever opening the trapdoor and causing the sickening crack sound as the condemned neck broke now there's no suggestion that he enjoyed this task but it does nicely show the steel that lay a cleveland's core hidden beneath the flabby exterior and by this time there was no doubting that flabby was exactly what cleveland was becoming always overweight as a child the future president entered his fourth decade with a waistline expanding like the early universe in part this was due to his insatiable appetites cleveland drank like an alcoholic fish he ate like a gluttonous horse and he hated exercise once declaring bodily movement alone is among the dreary and unsatisfying things of life by 1880 he'd ballooned nearly 280 pounds making him the fattest president not named william howard taft not that his weight ever seems to have bothered the man who was nicknamed uncle jumbo cleveland was almost perversely proud of his waistline and diet while running for sheriff it jokingly promised to cut down four glasses of beer a day and then proceeded to take a truly gigantic glass with him every time he went out meaning he could drink a gallon of beer without technically breaking his word this sense of humor was one of the reasons everyone in buffalo loved him he had a common touch the sort of guy who'd take you fishing beat you at poker and then buy your drinks all while telling you some uproarious joke oddly this side would almost vanish once he got to washington but it was there at the beginning and it's one of the reasons that he went as far as he did in 1881 the democratic party in buffalo began casting around for a well-liked local to run as their candidate for mayor with the jovial overweight cleveland fitting the bill they asked him if he'd like to stand caught off guard cleveland agreed and amazed everyone by winning what was even more surprising though was that he even went on to be an excellent mayor the moment he arrived in city hall the old core of steel inside cleveland reawakened instead of simply signing off on his party's wasteful spending the new mayor took an axe to buffalo's budget cutting away the fat leaving behind a city that was leaner less corrupt and better run and a secret weapon was the veto in all of his leadership roles from buffalo mayor all the way to president cleveland would become notorious for vetoing any bill he felt wasted money remember this was the great era of pork barrel politics when throwing money at allies patrons and random passers by was just how you did things but not grover cleveland in his single year as buffalo's mayor cleveland exercised so much corruption and saved so much money that he became a public hero not just in buffalo at state level new york democrats noticed this rising star and begged him to run for governor just like with the buffalo mayoral race cleveland agreed and just like in buffalo he won despite having never really sought the job as 1883 dawned then cleveland was on a dizzying journey that had taken him to governor of america's then most popular state in a mere two years for most people this would be the pinnacle of their careers grove cleveland though was only just getting started now just before we continue today i do have to tell you about a surface that you probably never heard of before never been mentioned on youtube it's squarespace and obviously i'm just kidding everyone knows squarespace because they are the best place to build a website in 2022. and look if you need a website you just shouldn't be considering anywhere else if it's entered your thought you know i don't know what you're making for a business a blog you're sharing your annoying political opinions whatever make that site with squarespace why because websites are ridiculously easy to make and feature rich imagine the situation you know nothing about websites you like looking at them you know they some of 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that's the sort of leap that would make stalin's five-year plans look unambitious and it was all down to simple anti-corruption efforts when cleveland took over new york the state was in the grip of the democratic machine in tammany hall the same tammany hall that helped him get elected but rather than repaying them cleveland did exactly what he'd done in buffalo his short tenure saw him crack down on corruption sweep away waste and do his level best to bring tammany hall to heel all of this made him super popular in new york and that made democrats super interested in nominating him for president new york you see oh was key to the white house in the previous presidential election 1880 the popular vote had been on a knife edge with just 1898 votes separating james a garfield from his democratic pursuer but because garfield had won new york the electoral college hadn't even been close ever since democrats have become convinced their only path to victory involved taking new york and who better to capture the all-important state than its popular new governor summer 1884 saw cleveland gain his party's nomination almost without having to campaign against him the republicans put up james g blaine given the gop had won every election since 1860 they probably felt they could nominate a pig in a wig and still somehow win and who knows maybe miss piggy would have won but james g blaine didn't he was just too corrupt too cozy with wall street even for his party 1884 saw the mugwomb faction of republicans split off to support cleveland it was a brutally damaging moment for blaine one of his allies tried to deflect by digging up an old scandal about cleveland fathering a child out of wedlock but that came back to bite them when cleveland essentially put up his hands and said yeah i'd miss it the kid's probably mine what do you want to do about it it was the perfect comeback by telling the truth cleveland made himself seem even more honest than ever yet even now blaine might have still squeaked a win had it not been for one rather unfortunate speech at a new york rally one of blaine's allies told voters cleveland was the candidate of rum romanism and rebellion which everyone took as a swipe at the catholic irish as a result nyc's thousands of irish refused to back blame oh when the results came in the two candidates were nearly level in the popular vote in new york though blaine had lost by a mere 1 200 votes with that the state handed cleveland an electoral college victory the following march 1885 grover cleveland became the first democrat inaugurated president since james buchanan it was a stunning victory one made all the more so by being unexpected for the first time in 30 years a full generation the democrats had taken the white house and what would they do now that they'd finally clawed back that prize the answer it soon turned out was well not a lot as the new york times stated in cleveland's 1908 obituary the first term of grover cleveland as president of the united states was not made notable by any striking events and it's here we get to one of the oddest things about cleveland's tenure despite being an anti-corruption machine in buffalo and new york cleveland in washington was curiously inactive sure he still went out of his way to protect public money from wasteful spending even torpedoing a drought relief bill because he felt it wasn't the government's job to bail out farmers sure he still wielded his veto power it's commonly accepted that he vetoed more bills than all previous presidents combined yet he never tried to use his office to really change things to push through his vision of the country because that's not what he saw the presidency for in cleveland's mind the president wasn't a leader but a guardrail against congress a man who exercised discrete judgment to ensure the other branches didn't go loopy it was a self-limiting vision of the presidency especially compared to what we expect nowadays but that doesn't mean there isn't plenty for us to talk about along with his other attributes grover cleveland has the distinction of being one of the only two men to the white house as a bachelor while others entered as widows or were widowed while in office only cleveland and james buchanan arrived in the oval office having never been married but while buchanan would remain a bachelor cleveland would soon find love in the most unexpected place francis folsom was cleveland's surprise choice of bride surprising because she was both almost 30 years younger than him and also the daughter of his ex-law partner in fact cleveland had paid for her upbringing after her dad died in an accident yet he wouldn't remain a father figure for very long in 1885 cleveland proposed to the girl after she visited the white house the two were married on june 2nd 1886 and just like that the 21 year old francis became america's youngest first lady she took up the role just as her new husband was really getting into the swing of his first term despite not being an activist president cleveland still had some achievements he worked to increase the size of the navy while also establishing the president's right to appoint his own people in this case that usually meant promoting people based on merit cleveland was one of the first presidents to really pursue a policy of meritocracy uplifting the talented at the expense of the well-connected but while cleveland's first term had some wins it also had its controversies the biggest of which revolved around race as a proud democrat cleveland represented the party of the south the party of the lost cause and jim crow and he took this role seriously throughout his tenure cleveland made a point of keeping the white southerners happy returning confederate flags taken in battle opposing integrated schools and treating attempts to restrict black political participation with a shrug outside the deep south his record was more mixed for a while he genuinely tried to promote the rights of immigrant chinese workers being exploited in the west before eventually backtracking and trying to halt immigration from china where native americans were concerned things were even murkier cleveland saw himself as a friend to america's indigenous inhabitants and tried to improve their lives improve in air quotes here because it basically involved him going hey why didn't you guys try uh you know give it up your culture i'm sure that'll be totally fine just give it a go come on overall then cleveland's first term was a mixed bag quite successful if your thing is cutting government spending kind of sucky if your thing is positive race relations of course no one at the time knew this was only his first term especially after 1888 delivered him a shock defeat in the run-up to the election cleveland had started taking aim at tariffs which he felt forced costs onto customers cutting them was broadly popular with a notable exception among industrial workers whose jobs they protected industrial workers who just happened to be a sizeable voting block in key swing states like new york can't guess what happened that november when 1888's results came in it quickly became clear cleveland had beaten the republican contender benjamin harrison in the popular vote unfortunately it simultaneously lost new york by one percent in indiana by a razor thin margin that meant that for only the third time in history the guy who'd lost the popular vote would become president cleveland's term was over on march the 4th 1889 grover cleveland left the white house returning to private life as a lawyer for just about everyone this must have seemed like the end of the 22nd president never before had a one-term wonder staged a comeback to the highest office in the land but of course cleveland wouldn't be just a one-term wonder he may have been electorally defeated but grover cleveland wasn't finished he would be back for one last non-consecutive term unfortunately it would be the second term that destroyed his party [Music] despite having just watched a president torpedo his election chances with tariff reform it didn't take long for the republicans to do the exact same thing in early 1890 rising gop style william mckinley forced through a new higher a tariff intended to protect factory jobs instead it caused a massive spike in consumer prices just as the u.s stock market was hit by an equally massive downturn the result was a republican shellacking in the midterms the gop shed 93 house seats along with tond national support suddenly it looked like 1892 might not be an easy second win for benjamin harrison but whoever the democrats put up would likely beat the unpopular president and grover cleveland wasn't just going to sit back and let the chance to make history pass him by november 1892 saw a straight rematch between cleveland and harrison and while it was still close the results were far more decisive than in 1888 as well as the popular vote cleveland won both new york and indiana plus a bunch of other swing states for the first and at least for now only time in history a president had been re-elected for a second non-consecutive term it's hard to imagine what cleveland must have felt when he heard the results he was now the most electorally successful democrat since andrew jackson the only guy who'd managed to punch a hole in the gop's post-civil war dominance well whatever he was feeling oh we hope he saved it because it would soon transpire that cleveland hadn't even won a poisoned chalice but a chance to be force-fed manure every single day for four long years in february 1893 just a month before cleveland's second inauguration the economy utterly collapsed like utterly prior to the great depression this was by far the greatest depression on record as banks slammed their doors the white hot rail industry imploded that in turn collapsed demand in the steel industry setting off a chain reaction of company failures in the city's unemployment spiked to 25 percent across the nation as a whole it stood at nearly a fifth far worse than the great recession's peak as banks fell people's savings were wiped out there was so much demand for aid that charities couldn't keep up with such a doomsday scenario it's hard to see how any president could have emerged with his reputation intact and while cleveland would really do his best it would backfire so badly that the democrats would be wiped out the problem boiled down to the president's steely commitment to fiscal conservatism now we can argue until the cows come home about whether it's better to splurge like an incontinent keynesian or lock while it's tight during a downturn i'm sure plenty of commenters are already doing so but the inaugural fact is that if you're going to tighten the belt you need to be excellent at communicating it to the average voter on why he's getting poorer and it's here that cleveland found himself out of his depth after a lifetime of winning plaudits for cost-saving measures the newly re-elected president struggled to articulate why being disciplined was now more important than ever and that led to some major pr blunders one came when an army of the unemployed known as coxy's army marched on dc demanding public works projects to replace their lost jobs while the newspapers covered them with sympathy cleveland refused to budge unshakable in his belief that it wasn't the government's place to provide for the destitute even worse was the pullman strike of 1894 that year workers downing tools at the pawn car yards near chicago triggered a nationwide railroad strike rather than negotiate cleveland sent in the national guard over the protest of illinois governor fighting broke out and dozens of strikers were killed the strike breaking effectively wiped out support for the democrats in the industrial north yet it would be his response to something else that truly shattered cleveland's party the clash between silver and gold [Music] free silver is one of those issues forgotten today but which seriously whipped people up in the late 19th century the basic idea is that a whole bunch of dudes wanted a monetary policy backed by both gold and silver which they felt would increase everyone's prosperity while a whole bunch of other dudes wanted only to issue money strictly backed by the nation's gold reserves in this battle cleveland was fighting gold but his party's southern and western wing was riding the silver chariot now this might have been fine had president harrison not signed an act mandating the government by colossal sums of silver each month then issue notes that could be exchanged for either silver or gold coin something cleveland was certain was damaging the economy that's maybe all a bit complicated but don't worry if you don't follow the important part is that cleveland quickly overturned president harrison's silver purchase act it was a move the free silver types in his party would never forgive the 1894 midterms were to grover cleveland's presidency what covid was to 2020 with the industrial north against him and the silver supporting west infuriated cleveland oversaw the worst midterm results in u.s history remember the 2010 republican wave well it was barely a ripple compared to 1894. democrats saw over 110 seats swept away in the house the largest voter realignment since the civil war mortally wounded president cleveland tried to stumble on but with his health on the line doing so would soon become impossible back in 1893 cleveland had discovered a tumor inside his mouth and had it removed in a secret operation onboard a ship worried that the illness would be taken as a sign of weakness the result was a president forced to deal with all of this crap in his second term while also trying to hide the fact that he was now partially sporting an artificial jaw behind his trademark mustache it must have been hell and with all the bad news around him it only got worse now we don't want to give the impression cleveland's second term was all failure he had a major foreign policy win mediating a brewing conflict between venezuela and britain with mediating here basically meaning threatening to knock those slimmies out if they tried anything he also succeeded in replenishing the country's depleted gold reserves even if he had to rely on guys like jp morgan to do so still the overall feeling was of a man well maybe not drowning but certainly flailing splashing around desperately as hungry shark circle just waiting for their chance not that cleveland would give republicans the opportunity by the time 1896 rolled around cleveland had fallen out so much with his own party that it's doubtful he could have gotten re-nominated even if he wanted to instead the president stepped aside to let some new blood take over he probably hoped his remaining supporters would force through a candidate in his mold but no that summer democrats nominated the free silverite william jennings bryan who famously declared in a speech you shall not press down on the brow of labor this crown of thorns you shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold it was a total repudiation of everything cleveland had stood for a straight dash from fiscal conservatism into the arms of unabashed populism the only cold comfort was that bryan would get trashed in the election that november william mckinley won the republicans their biggest landslide since 1872. grover cleveland left the white house on march the 4th 1897 convinced his party had stabbed him in the back and fallen prey to unhinged extremists in some ways he was right here he was the only democrat who'd won since the civil war the only one who'd sit in the white house into woodrow wilson and his party was basically telling him don't let the door hit you on your way out although he'd live another 11 years settling into a pleasant retirement in princeton new jersey he'd never forgive this perceived betrayal cleveland died on june 24 1908 his last words were reported to have been i have tried so hard to do right and really they sum up the man rather well as the most conservative democrat to occupy the white house post-civil war cleveland seems at least on fiscal policy more like calvin coolidge than fdr certainly he was inflexible on this issue committed to a vision of america led by a president who promoted talent kept a sound eye on the nation's finances and did little to interfere in people's daily lives that's not necessarily a bad thing maybe it even sounds ideal to you it's just a shame this vision didn't reflect the economic realities of the 1890s today grover cleveland is usually ranked by historians somewhere in the middle certainly no james buchanan star disaster but also far from being great that may be because our view of what the presidency is has changed whereas cleveland's voters were happy with a guardrail against congress people nowadays prefer hearing about guys like teddy roosevelt activist presidents who used the office to change the nation and honestly who can blame them for guys like us making history videos the active presidents are always the best but it's perhaps worth remembering that sometimes there are other ways to lead a country ways that are less showy but are still effective he may only be remembered as a trivia point today but grover cleveland was also a unique leader one whose non-consecutive tenures deserve to be remembered [Music]

Channel: Biographics

Views: 240,778

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: 6flNCw2TGJ8

Length: 28min 1sec (1681 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 01 2022