[120]
Cleveland and Treasury Secretary Daniel Manning stood firmly on the side of the gold standard, and tried to reduce the amount of silver that the government was required to coin under the Bland–Allison Act of 1878.[121] Cleveland unsuccessfully appealed to Congress to repeal this law before he was inaugurated.[122] Angered Westerners and Southerners advocated for cheap money to help their poorer constituents.[123] In reply, one of the foremost silverites, Richard P. Bland, introduced a bill in 1886 that would require the government to coin unlimited amounts of silver, inflating the then-deflating currency.[124] While Bland's bill was defeated, so was a bill the administration favored that would repeal any silver coinage requirement.[124] The result was a retention of the status quo, and a postponement of the resolution of the free-silver issue.