Grover Cleveland Quotes
Loyalty to the principles upon which our Government rests positively demands that the equality before the law which it guarantees to every citizen should be justly and in good faith conceded in all parts of the land.
Cleveland, Grover. "First Inaugural Address." 4 Mar. 1885. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, edited by James D. Richardson, vol. 8, Bureau of National Literature, 1911, p. 302.
It is surprising that these ideas would come from one of the most autocratic powerful monarch in the world at the time. However there were many very liberal influences on her from Europe. This set of proposals she even sent to Voltaire to get his feedback and criticism.
This statement in the President’s Second Inaugural. Infuriated the politicians of the Southern States. Remember, at the time there was brutal discrimination throughout most of the South, and more important to the South than the fact if the discrimination was their perverse view that this was a right, proper and necessary state of affairs for the welfare of the people and was required by Christianity’s mandates as they read the Scripture. For the President to state so publicly that discrimination was contrary to the law, justice, good faith, citizenship and fairness was a major shock. Since the early days of reconstruction after the Civil war in the Grant Administration, no president had spoken so publicly and openly against the Southern status quo.
Three Chicago Aldermen had marched on an art school demanding that a painting they found offensive be removed from public display. The police seized the painting, prompting a lawsuit.
The Senator was arguing against a bill to correct an aspect of the immigration law where infants and very young clildren are broght to the United States by parents who entered illegally. The children grow up in the United States—the only country and home that they have ever known. American law required that they be deported to “their countries” which they have no memory of and many do not even speak the language or know the culture. Sessions, is an example of the view that law defines justice. Therefore laws cannot be unjust nor can enforcing the law. Opponents point out that even in the United States we have, in earlier times, “enforced the law” which we came to regret and see as an injustice. The Fugitive slave laws, the Southern racial discrimination laws, and the law allowing Japanese American Citizens to be interned and lose their land during WWII are a few examples of laws, the enforcement of which is seen by most Americans as having been unjust. The execution of “witches” in early America was in conformity with the law.
Stephen Grover Cleveland was an American politician and lawyer who served as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897. Cleveland is the only president in American history to serve two nonconsecutive terms in office. He won the popular vote for three presidential elections—in 1884, 1888, and 1892—and was one of two Democrats (followed by Woodrow Wilson in 1912) to be elected president during the era of Republican presidential domination dating from 1861 to 1933.
