Before William Howard Taft hove into view, Grover Cleveland was our heaviest President, a title he took from his predecessor, Chester A. Arthur. Sadly, with the loss of his title to Taft in 1913, Cleveland is left with only two claims to contemporary attention: Only Non-Consecutively Elected President and Only President Who Married in the White House. Poor Grover. Remembered only for trivia.
Grover Cleveland cannot, of course, be reduced to mere trivia. The only Democrat elected to the presidency between 1860 and 1912, he was an opponent of protectionism and a staunch defender of the gold standard. He was also, according to Nick Cleaver, the prime mover behind a genuine attempt to recast the direction of American foreign policy.
In his book Grover Cleveland’s New Foreign Policy: Arbitration, Neutrality, and the Dawn of American Empire, Nick Cleaver calls for a reappraisal of the foreign policy of Grover Cleveland’s second term. He argues that Cleveland’s foreign policy was an ad hoc affair, driven by circumstance, but this did not mean it was bereft of principles. On the contrary, Cleaver argues that Cleveland’s foreign policy was grounded in principle and a genuine attempt to create a template for America’s conduct of foreign affairs. This attempt would ultimately flounder, hampered by the jingoistic tendencies brought to the fore by the United States’ increasing commercial engagement with the world.
Cleaver argues that Cleveland was forced to engage with the world due to America’s increasing foreign investment, especially in the Western Hemisphere. After the Civil War, America experienced rapid internal economic expansion and began to invest abroad in earnest. As American economic might grew, so did its power to influence events in other countries, even if inadvertently. For instance, the Hawaiian Revolution was sparked by an economic downturn caused by the McKinley Tariff of 1890, which ended the preferential treatment of Hawaiian sugar imports. Similarly, the Wilson-Gorman Tariff of 1894 ended the preferential treatment of Cuban sugar imports, adding fuel to the fire that became the Cuban War of Independence. Cleveland’s diplomatic involvement in South and Central America was a direct consequence of American foreign investment, which was threatened by the Brazilian Naval Revolt and the Nicaraguan government’s attempts to establish authority over the quasi-autonomous Mosquito Indian Reservation. Thus, the growing economic power of the United States drew the Cleveland Administration into the realm of foreign policy, forcing it to evolve an approach to foreign relations.
According to Cleaver, the foreign policy approach of Cleveland rested on three main planks: legalism, moralism, and conservatism. Legalism: an adherence to international law and a preference for settling disputes by arbitration. Moralism: respect for the sovereignty of weaker nations and an American obligation to set an example for how other nations should conduct their foreign affairs. Conservatism: a preference for the status quo and adherence to the traditions of American foreign policy, especially the Monroe Doctrine.
Cleaver gives ample evidence that Cleveland’s high-minded foreign policy was at odds with American public opinion. Of the foreign incidents that elicited the most public reaction: the Sino-Japanese War, where public opinion favored the Japanese over the Chinese; the Venezuelan Border Dispute, where public opinion favored Venezuela’s claims over Britain’s; the persecution of Christian Armenians, where public opinion was outraged at reported Muslim attacks on Christians; and the Cuban War for Independence, where public opinion heavily favored the Cuban rebels over the Spanish government, the Cleveland Administration was in lock step with public opinion only on the Venezuelan Border dispute. The American public, Cleveland’s Republican opponents, and even elements of his own party (as Cleveland’s domestic policies increasingly alienated more and more Democrats), sought a more emotive and interventionist policy. In the end, this led to the abandonment of Cleveland’s restrained approach to foreign policy as his successors expanded American power in the Western Hemisphere and the world.
Cleaver provides an excellent study of the origins and implementation of Cleveland’s foreign policy. He succeeds in his attempt to bring new light to an overlooked chapter of American foreign policy history that has been largely dismissed as an aberration in the traditional narrative, which views late-nineteenth century American foreign policy through the lens of the Spanish-American war. Contrary to past interpretations, Cleveland’s foreign policy was a concerted attempt to put American foreign policy on a firm legal and moral footing that would allow consistent, restrained use of American influence to protect American citizens and property, unencumbered by the whims of public opinion. Yet, it was this very rejection of public opinion that proved to be the policy’s downfall.
I would argue, however, that Cleaver misses an opportunity by not examining the foreign policy of Cleveland’s first term. The incidents of Cleveland’s first term warrant closer examination and consideration in light of Cleaver’s assessment of the foreign policy framework of Cleveland’s second term. At first glance, the major foreign policy incidents of his first term – the withdrawal from Senate consideration of the Frelinghuysen-Zavala Treaty and Berlin Convention, the implementation of the Samoan Protectorate, and the sealing and fisheries disputes with Canada and Great Britain – would fit snugly into the legalistic, moralistic, and conservative framework that Cleaver identifies.
Ignoring the foreign policy initiatives of Cleveland’s first term robs Cleaver’s assessment of valuable context. As Cleaver notes, Cleveland was involved in foreign policy even before he began his second term. Just before he took office, President-Elect Cleveland asked the Senate to withdraw consideration of the 1893 Hawaiian Annexation Treaty, until he could examine it properly. On assuming office, he ordered an investigation of the Hawaiian Revolution and never reintroduced the treaty for Senate consideration. That is neither the action of a president unsure of himself in foreign affairs, nor the action of a president who came into office lacking a framework to guide his actions. Cleaver may consider Cleveland’s foreign policy to be an ad hoc affair, but that ignores Cleveland’s experience of foreign policy. It seems to me that when Big Grover resumed the Presidency, he had a pretty good idea of just how he wanted to throw his not inconsiderable weight around.
Image: Puck cartoon portraying the honest Cleveland declaring independence from party bosses. 1885. Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
