Presidencies of Grover Cleveland

Grover Cleveland, who served as both the twenty-second and the twenty-fourth president of the United States, dominated the American political scene from 1884-1896. Viewed at one time as a monument of presidential courage, Cleveland has over the past generation been dismissed by historians as a "Bourbon democrat," the symbol of that wing of the Democratic party devoted to preserving the status quo and protecting the interests of the propertied. In this revisionist study, Richard Welch takes a fresh look at the Cleveland administrations and discovers a man whose assertive temperament was frequently at odds with his inherited political faith.