veland retired to private
life and resumed the practice of the law in New York. He had married on
the 2nd of June 1886 Miss Frances Folsom, a daughter of a former law
partner in Buffalo.

Congress had passed a law in 1878 requiring the treasury department to
purchase a certain amount of silver bullion each month and coin it into
silver dollars to be full legal tender. As no time had been fixed for
this operation to cease, it amounted to an unlimited increase of a kind
of currency that circulated at a nominal value much above its real
value. Both political parties were committed to this policy, and strong
passions were aroused whenever it was called in question. Cleveland had
written a letter for publication before he became president, saying that
a financial crisis of great severity must result if this coinage were
continued, and expressing the hope that Congress would speedily put an
end to it. In 1890 Congress, now controlled by the Republican party,
passed the McKinley Bill, by which the revenues of the government were
reduced by more than $60,000,000 annually, chiefly through a repeal of
the sugar duties. At the same time expenditures were largely increased
by liberal pension legislation, and the government's purchase of silver
bullion almost doubled by the provisions of the new Sherman Silver
Purchase Act of 1890.

In 1892 Cleveland was nominated for president a third time in
succession. President Harrison was nominated by the Republicans.
Cleveland received 277 electoral votes and Harrison 145, and 22 were
cast for James B. Weaver (b. 1833) of Iowa, the candidate of the
"People's" party. Cleveland's second term embraced some notable events.
The most important was the repeal of the silver legislation, which had
been a growing menace for fifteen years. Nearly $600,000,000 of "fiat
money" had been thrust into the channels of commerce in addition to
$346,000,000 of legal tender notes that had been issued during the Civil
War. A reserve of $100,000,000 of gold had been accumulated for the
redemption of these notes. In April 1893 the reserve fell below this
sum. President Cleveland called an extra session of Congress to repeal
the Silver Law. The House promptly passed the repealing act. In the
Senate there was a protracted struggle. The Democrats now had a majority
of that body and they were more decidedly pro-silver than the
Republicans. The president had undertaken to coerce his own party to do
something against its