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Stephen Grover Cleveland Born : March 18, 1837 Died : June 24, 1908

Political Party: Democratic First Term: March 4, 1885- 1889 Vice President: Thomas A. Hendricks

Second Term : March 4, 1893- 1897 Vice President: Adlai E. Stevenson

President Cleveland went about his presidential terms with great pose and dignity by upholding his morals and being respectful to everyone. He wanted what he thought was best for the nation and did it despite the lack of support from Congress. For his actions I give him the grade of a B. Grover Cleveland started his first term with bright eyes and an optimistic view of the nation. He wanted the country to be a place of democracy that maintained a stable financial status, preferably one that relied on solely gold. He also pushed for a reduction of the tariff due to the fact that the present tariff was gaining surplus and that the people were paying for it. In response to his goals, he, for the most part, succeeded in completely them. If there was one reason for why his goals did not follow through to getting passed, it was because of the Republican majority in the Senate and a continually decreasing majority of Democrats in the House. When it came to issues of the tariff, for example, the views were completely different. The Republicans wanted a high tariff in order to protect their precious industries in the north, but with a running surplus being gained for the government, it wasn't needed to be that high. The Democrats (Cleveland) saw the working class and the farming community being hit hard by the big tariffs and wanted them to be reduced. The result of the tariff issue was left unresolved and spilled over to Cleveland's second term where the document was doctored up so much that Cleveland refused to sign it, but was still passed as law. Most of the other disagreements of bills often lead to the denying of them in the Senate, House, or with a big veto by President Cleveland. The best action done by Cleveland and his administration was the repealing of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. As a cause of the Panic of 1893, silver was being distributed freely, and the U.S. Treasury gold reserve fell below $100 million. The repealing of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act made no longer able for people to redeem silver notes in gold. This slowly helped the nation's economy grow, heal and also help the gold reserve replenish its gold supply up until the end of Cleveland's second term. The worse action done by Cleveland, although there was little negative shown, was the vetoing of the Texas Seed Bill. This eliminated a $10,000 grant to be given to drought-stricken farmers who were being hit by harsh times. He declared that this act would encourage the nation's dependency of the government to have to bail them out when times got tough. However, throughout his presidency he turned around and paid off wealthy bondholders a total sum of $45 million, which goes against what he said previously; not a good act done by the president. The act done by President Cleveland that affected future presidents the most, was the use of the Monroe Doctrine in the Venezuela-Great Britain conflict. His new interpreting of the document made formal of American interest of foreign affairs within the hemisphere, and this included the current conflict of Venezuela and Britain Guiana. With the use of this document the U.S. contributed to the end of the conflict and a settlement of the boundary. These actions, however, opened the door for future actions of imperialism (Cuba, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines) with the Monroe Doctrine leading the way. President Cleveland did a great job with running the country during his two terms. He didn't have a great amount of support coming from Congress (mostly because of his objection to the spoils system), but he was able to help our country out of an economic crisis and into better times. With the unsupportive Congress he had difficulty running a great presidency, but he made due with what he had. So for his great effort and success of what he could make, I give him a B.

Bibliography: Austin, Bill. "Famous Speeches - Grover Cleveland - First Inaugural Address ". Famous Speeches. 12 April 2008 .

Bailey, Thomas A., Lizabeth Cohen, and David M. Kennedy. __The American Pageant__. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002. "Grover Cleveland". Wikipedia. 12 April 2008 . Smith, Carter. __Presidents, All You Need To Know__. New York: Hylas Publishing, 2005.