The Election of 1892 — Parks, Presidents and Parks

Background

The country was deeply divided. The electoral vote was coming down to a few swing states. The campaign was bitter. Immigration was an issue. Voting rights were at issue. A former President was running to win a non-consecutive term. The year was 1892. Former President Grover Cleveland was running for election against the incumbent Benjamin Harrison.

Partisan Divide

By 1892, the 11 states of the former Confederacy were a solid block for the Democratic Presidential candidate. As shown in the nearby table, these states voted Democratic for 80 to 90 consecutive years. Democratic domination in the Senate lasted even longer –-over 100 years in Louisiana.

State	Consecutive Post-Civil War Years Voting for Democratic Presential Candidate	Post-Civil War years without a Republican Senator

Virginia	1880 – 1952 (except 1928)	1876 - 1972
North Carolina	1880 - 1972	1872 - 1972
South Carolina	1880 - 1972	1876 - 1976
Georgia	1880 - 1964	1871 - 1980
Florida	1880 - 1952	1879 - 1968
Alabama	1880 - 1960	1878 - 1981
Mississippi	1880 - 1960	1880 - 1978
Tennessee	1880 – 1948 (except 1920, 1928)	1875 - 1967
Arkansas	1880 - 1972	1877 - 1997
Louisiana	1880 - 1972	1883 - 2005
Texas	1880 – 1972 (except 1952, 1956)	1876 - 1961

With the South voting as a bloc, the election came down to the Northern and Western states. The most competitive states were Indiana and New York. Others usually voted Republican, such as Illinois and Pennsylvania.

1884: Grover Cleveland wins the Presidency

Democrat Grover Cleveland developed a reputation as an honest reformer while serving as mayor of Buffalo and then Governor of New York. He was a fiscal conservative.

His opponent, James Blaine, was perceived as corrupt with credible allegations that he had sold his support in Congress to various business interests.

The election was tight – Cleveland’s margin of victory came from New York State – which he won by less than 2,000 votes. He was the first Democratic President since the end of the Civil War.

Cleveland’s Out of Wedlock Child

During his 1884 campaign, news broke that Cleveland had fathered a child out-of-wedlock in 1874. Cleveland, a 40-year-old bachelor at the time, admitted this saying that Maria Halpin, a widow, had been forward with him and he had generously helped with expenses and adoption. The child was named Oscar Folsom Cleveland (Folsom was the name of one of Cleveland’s friends)

Haplin, however, stated that the relationship was nonconsensual. She was admitted to an insane asylum against her will and left a few days later after a physician said she was healthy. She claimed that Cleveland had her son abducted while she was in the asylum. Cleveland’s attorney presented Halpin with a document showing her agreement to give the child up for adoption. She claimed it was a forgery.

During his first term, Cleveland, at age 49, married Frances Folsom. Oscar Folsom was a close friend of Cleveland’s; as noted above, his out-of-wedlock child was given that name. After Folsom died, Cleveland became the ‘unofficial’ guardian for his infant daughter, Frances. Yes, the one he married 20 years later.

Cleveland’s First Term: 1884 to 1888

Cleveland was a fiscal conservative. When President, he vetoed a bill that provided relief to drought-stricken farmers. He stated, “I feel obliged to withhold my approval of the plan, as proposed by this bill, to indulge a benevolent and charitable sentiment through the appropriation of public funds for that purpose. 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.”

The first 21 Presidents of the United States vetoed about 200 bills. Cleveland vetoed almost 600. Most were ‘private laws’ intended to benefit a single person. Hundreds related to Civil War pensions and President Cleveland’s vetoes were because the requests were improper. As an example, “An act granting a pension to Mary A. Van Etten.” Ms. Van Etten’s husband, a Civil War veteran, died in a drowning incident in 1875, 10 years after the end of the Civil War. Ten years later, in 1885, Ms. Van Etten said her husband couldn’t swim due to a military disability and claimed entitlement to a pension. As Cleveland stated – “It seems to me that there is such an entire absence of direct and tangible evidence that the death of this soldier resulted from any incident of his service that the granting of a pension upon such a theory is not justified.”

1888 Election: Cleveland Loses to Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison was the grandson of the nation’s ninth President – William Henry Harrison— and a great-grandson of one of the nation’s Founding Fathers. He was a colonel during the Civil War, leading a regiment during the 1864 campaign that captured Atlanta. He was later promoted to Brigadier General. In contrast, Cleveland avoided the Civil War draft by hiring a substitute for $300, which was legal then.

Tariff policy was a principal issue. Cleveland had proposed a reduction in tariffs, stating they hurt consumers. Harrison wanted to keep them high to protect the industry and workers. In the 2024 campaign, President Trump wants to increase tariffs.

Claims of foreign election interference were made during this campaign. A Republican posing as a British ex-pat named Murchison wrote a letter to the British ambassador asking for advice on how to vote. The ambassador wrote back endorsing Cleveland. The Republicans published the letter shortly before the election. The results of the Murchison letter had the most significant impact on Irish voters who made up a substantial portion of New York, Cleveland’s home state. Irish-American voters did not want a President who supported Great Britain. The election was very tight, and this letter may have lost support for Cleveland in New York. Had Cleveland won New York, he would have won the election.

1892 Election: Cleveland Defeats Benjamin Harrison

Tariffs were once again an issue. Congress passed the McKinley Tariff during Harrison’s term, significantly raising tariffs. Cleveland wanted to lower tariffs. The steelworker strike in 1892 against wage cuts cost Harrison support because it contradicted the argument that high tariffs helped wages.

Voting rights for African-Americans also was an issue. By this time the Southern States had suppressed the African-American vote through various mechanisms including a poll tax. Henry Cabot Lodge, Massachusetts Republican, proposed a voting rights bill similar to the 1960s Civil Rights laws. Harrison favored it, Cleveland was opposed.

The Populist Party entered as a third party, winning five Western states and over 8% of the vote. Its campaign platform focused on helping farmers and workers.

With his wife seriously ill, Harrison limited his campaigning – she died two weeks before the election. Ultimately, Cleveland easily won the election by a substantially more significant margin than his 1884 campaign.

Aftermath

By 1896, Cleveland and the Democratic party were quite unpopular due to the ‘Panic of 1893,’ the most significant depression up to that point in U.S. history. Republican William McKinley won the 1986 election to succeed Cleveland. A Democrat would not win the Presidency again until 1912, 16 years later.

Until Trump’s 2024 victory, Cleveland was the only other President to win non-consecutive terms.