#1892 election

[deadpresidents]

"The Democrats who have been over to see Cleveland are not very talkative when they return. They evidently feel like the man who had carried a bucket of water and emptied it into a cistern! They have brought back only empty buckets, and they seem to be somewhat in doubt whether the cistern will hold water. They have made a 'catch,' but whether it is a salmon or a dog-fish they do not yet know."

-- Senator Benjamin Harrison of Indiana to former Indiana Congressman Stanton J. Peelle, on President-elect Grover Cleveland, shortly before Cleveland's first inauguration, February 14, 1885.

Harrison would go on to defeat Cleveland in the 1888 Presidential election, but lost to Cleveland when Harrison made his own bid for a second term in 1892.

[deadpresidents]

Trump was elected, then Biden was elected, then Trump was elected again. Has a president even been elected for a second term after he's been voted out after his first term?

Yes. Grover Cleveland was elected President in 1884, lost to Benjamin Harrison in 1888, and defeated Harrison in a President vs. President rematch in 1892. He was the only person to serve non-consecutive terms as President until Trump.

[deadpresidents]

"Of course the subject would be relieved of all uncertainty and embarrassment if every President would die at the end of his term."

-- Former President Grover Cleveland, on the uncertain role played by former Presidents in retirement, during remarks to neighbors in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, July 25, 1891.

One year later, Cleveland would seek and win reelection as the only President in American history to serve non-consecutive terms.

[deadpresidents]

"He is a good man, a noble character, and a patriot, the like of which we need. Mr. Harrison's presence and example will be missed if he should die. His party needs him."

-- Former President Grover Cleveland, responding to reporters in Norfolk, Virginia who asked for his thoughts about former President Benjamin Harrison while Harrison was gravely ill, on March 12, 1901. The 67-year-old Harrison died the following day at his home in Indianapolis.

Harrison had been elected President in 1888 when he defeated Cleveland, who was running for a second term. In 1892, Cleveland and Harrison faced off once again, with Cleveland defeating Harrison and becoming the first (and, so far, only) President to be elected to two non-consecutive terms.

[deadpresidents]

Who's the earliest president we have a voice recording of?

The earliest known audio recording of a President’s voice is from Benjamin Harrison. The brief recording of Harrison’s voice was captured on one of Thomas Edison’s wax cylinders, most likely in 1889 which was the first year of his term in the White House (1889-1893).

Audio also survives of Grover Cleveland, who was Harrison’s immediate predecessor and successor due to his non-consecutive terms (1885-1889 and 1893-1897) in office. However, it’s believed that the recordings of Cleveland’s voice are from 1892 when Cleveland was campaigning to retake the Presidency from Harrison.

There are existing voice recordings of every President since Harrison and Cleveland, but it’s fascinating to be able to listen today and hear what two Presidents initially elected in the 1880s sounded like (especially Cleveland, who sounds like the Mayor of Munchkinland in The Wizard of Oz):

•The voice of President Benjamin Harrison (circa 1889).•The voice of President Grover Cleveland (during his 1892 Presidential campaign).

[generalharrison]

Candidate Harrison in 1892.

New York Public Library Digital Collection.

[generalharrison]

Harrison got one more vote than I expected, but I'll find that feller!

Timothy Sullivan, Tammany Hall’s leader for New York’s Lower East Side, after the election of 1892. Sullivan’s precinct went 395 to 4, in favor of Cleveland.

[generalharrison]

No man in public life hates fraud and abhors bloodshed more than does President Harrison, and had he been supported, as he should have been, by Congress, murder and rapine would not now be running riot in the Southern states. As much as any other man likely to receive the nomination, Mr. Harrison is in favor of law and force for the protection of the colored man from this lawless violence.

Frederick Douglass, A Plea for the Renomination of General Harrison, 1892.

Douglass expresses measured but total support for President Harrison, who had tried and failed to pass both an education and a civil rights bill, and who had highlighted horrible crimes committed against Southern African-Americans.