[149] Though Cleveland appointed no black Americans to patronage jobs, he allowed Frederick Douglass to continue in his post as recorder of deeds in Washington, D.C., and appointed another black man (James Campbell Matthews, a former New York judge) to replace Douglass upon his resignation.[149] His decision to replace Douglass with a black man was met with outrage, but Cleveland claimed to have known Matthews personally.[150]
Although Cleveland had condemned the "outrages" against Chinese immigrants, he believed that Chinese immigrants were unwilling to assimilate into white society.[151] Secretary of State Thomas F. Bayard negotiated an extension to the Chinese Exclusion Act, and Cleveland lobbied the Congress to pass the Scott Act, written by Congressman William Lawrence Scott, which prevented the return of Chinese immigrants who left the United States.[152] The Scott Act easily passed both houses of Congress, and Cleveland signed it into law on October 1, 1888.[152]

Native American policy
Henry L. Dawes wrote the Dawes Act, which Cleveland signed into law.
