n 1888. His insistence upon the tariff offended the
protectionist wing of his party, and he left office unpopular and
lonely. He retired to New York City, where he took up the practice of
law and regained the confidence of the people. Demands upon him for
public speeches in 1891 revealed the recovery of his popularity. His
friends began to organize in his behalf during 1892, and David B. Hill
aided by his opposition.

The strength of Hill, who had been elected Governor of New York, and who
was now Senator, was based upon Tammany Hall and those elements in the
New York Democracy that reformers were constantly attacking. He was
believed to have defeated Cleveland in 1888 by entering into a deal with
the Republican machine by which Harrison received the electoral and he
the gubernatorial vote of New York. Early in 1892, as interest in
Cleveland revived, Hill called a "snap" convention and secured the
indorsement of New York for his own candidacy. The solid New York
delegation shouting for Hill was an item in Cleveland's favor at the
Democratic Convention in Chicago. With tariff reformers in control,
denouncing "Republican protection as a fraud, a robbery of the great
majority of the American people for the benefit of a few," and
reasserting Cleveland's phrase that "public office is a public trust,"
the convention selected Cleveland and Adlai E. Stevenson, of Illinois,
as the party candidates. Its coinage plank, like that of the
Republicans, meant what the voter chose to read into it.

There were two debates in the campaign of 1892. On the surface was the
renewed discussion of the tariff, with the Republicans fighting for the
McKinley Bill all the more earnestly because there was danger of its
repeal, and the Democrats officially demanding reduction. "I would
rather have seen Cleveland defeated than to have had that fool
free-trade plank adopted," said one of the Eastern Democrats to "Tom"
Johnson after the convention. But the Democratic protectionists were
forced into surly acquiescence so long as Cleveland was the candidate
and William L. Wilson the chairman of the convention. The partial
insincerity of the tariff debate aided the Populists, who were directing
a discussion upon the general basis of reform.

Cleveland was elected with a majority of electoral votes and a plurality
of popular votes, but the vote for Weaver and Field measured the extent
of the revolt against both parties. The Populists carried Colorado,
Id