Grover Cleveland

Born in New Jersey in 1837, Cleveland rose fast: Buffalo mayor in 1881, New York governor in 1882, where he teamed with Theodore Roosevelt on reform. His crusade against corruption pulled enough Republicans - "Mugwumps" - to narrowly win the presidency in 1884 as the first Democrat since the Civil War. He signed the Interstate Commerce Act in 1887, making railroads the first federally regulated industry, and the Dawes Act, which broke up tribal lands and led Native Americans to cede two-thirds of their holdings over the next half-century. He won the popular vote in 1888 but lost the electoral college to Benjamin Harrison. Four years later he won both back, only to face the Panic of 1893 a month before taking office. He opposed annexing Hawaii, sent troops into the Pullman Strike, and held firm on gold, splitting his party and enraging labor and agrarians alike. By 1896 the Democrats had moved on; by the end of his second term he was toxic. He spent his final years as a Princeton trustee and protesting the Spanish-American War, dying in 1908.