This thesis explores the role played by the second presidential administration of Grover Cleveland on the evolution of United States foreign policy in the mid-1890s. Coming at the end of a period of rapid industrialisation and national growth for the United States – and culminating in the War of 1898 – the mid-1890s has generally been portrayed as either the end of the post-Civil War era or a precursor to American empire. The second Cleveland administration in particular has often been overlooked by foreign policy historians, but it forms an anomaly in the narrative of a nation preparing to acquire an overseas empire. At a time when much of American politics and society was increasingly in favour of an assertive and expansive foreign policy, Cleveland and his Secretaries of State, Walter Q. Gresham and Richard Olney, enacted a policy which opposed overseas expansion and sought to limit the United States’ involvement in the affairs of other nations. This thesis argues that, confronted by the same changing circumstances for the nation on the world stage which had created the public demand for a more aggressive foreign policy, Cleveland, Gresham and Olney set out a new template for how the United States should conduct itself in global affairs. This template rejected imperialist expansion and proposed a more limited interaction with other nations based upon legalist principles. It also included elements of moral duty and a belief that the United States should be an example to other nations. The template was formulated on a largely ad hoc basis through several foreign policy incidents throughout the term, but its underlying values were present throughout and Cleveland would ultimately propose it to the nation as a future direction for American foreign policy in his final Annual Message. As such, Cleveland’s template for foreign policy stands as an alternative vision for the evolution of U.S. foreign policy in the 1890s.

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