The Abridgment: Message From the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress at the Beginning of the Second Session of the Fiftieth ... and Selections From Accompanying Documents

by Grover Cleveland

Excerpt from The Message From the President of the United States to the Two Houses of Congress at the Beginning of the Second Session of the Fiftieth Congress, With the Reports of the Heads of Departments and Selections From Accompanying Documents

In pursuance of a constitutional provision requiring the President, from time to time, to give to the Congress information of the state' of the Union, I have the satisfaction to announce that the close of the year finds the United States in the enjoyment of domestic tran quillity and at peace with all the nations.

Since my last annual message our foreign relations have been strengthened and improved by performance of international good offices and by new and renewed treaties of amity, commerce, and reciprocal extradition of criminals.

Those international questions which still await settlement are all reasonably within the domain of amicable negotiation, and there is no existing subject of dispute between the United States and any foreign power that is not susceptible of satisfactory adjustment by frank diplomatic treatment.

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1186 pages, Hardcover

Published February 4, 2019

About the author

Stephen Grover Cleveland was the twenty-second and twenty-fourth President of the United States. Cleveland is the only President to serve two non-consecutive terms (1885–1889 and 1893–1897). He was the winner of the popular vote for President three times—in 1884, 1888, and 1892—and was the only Democrat elected to the Presidency in the era of Republican political domination that lasted from 1860 to 1912. Cleveland's admirers praise him for his honesty, independence, integrity, and commitment to the principles of classical liberalism. As a leader of the Bourbon Democrats, he opposed imperialism, taxes, subsidies and inflationary policies, but as a reformer he also worked against corruption, patronage, and bossism.

Some of Cleveland's actions caused controversy even within his own party. His intervention in the Pullman Strike of 1894 in order to keep the railroads moving angered labor unions, and his support of the gold standard and opposition to free silver alienated the agrarian wing of the Democrats. Furthermore, critics complained that he had little imagination and seemed overwhelmed by the nation's economic disasters—depressions and strikes—in his second term. Even so, his reputation for honesty and good character survived the troubles of his second term. In the words of his biographer, Allan Nevins, "in Grover Cleveland the greatness lies in typical rather than unusual qualities. He had no endowments that thousands of men do not have. He possessed honesty, courage, firmness, independence, and common sense. But he possessed them to a degree other men do not."