Grover Cleveland: America’s Only Double President

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He’s America’s only double president—the man who took the highest office in the land, lost it after one term, and then came roaring back for a second. Even if nothing else, Grover Cleveland’s status as America’s only non-consecutive president would be enough for him to be remembered. It’s thanks to him that Joe Biden is called the 46th president, despite only 45 people having ever held the office. Yet there’s more to the combined 22nd and 24th president than this piece of trivia. Cleveland’s eight interrupted years were filled with striking firsts. As the first Democrat elected president between James Buchanan and Woodrow Wilson, Cleveland’s tenures form a remarkable interlude in the post-Civil War era—two bands of blue on a chart that is otherwise the deepest of red in attitude.

Cleveland was unique—a passionate fiscal conservative. He holds the distinction of being perhaps the most moderate Democrat to ever leave the party. Sadly, that moderation would end up being the very thing that destroyed his reputation.

In the grand sweep of presidential history, there are occasional periods of one-party dominance, such as the Democratic-Republicans’ unbeatable winning streak from 1800 to 1824 or the New Deal coalition that won FDR and Harry Truman five elections combined. But perhaps none of these periods compares to the five decades after the Civil War. From Lincoln’s election in 1860 through to the end of Taft’s one term in 1913, almost no Democrats made it to the highest office. Of the two that did, one—Andrew Johnson—only got there thanks to Lincoln running on a unity ticket and then getting assassinated. Had John Wilkes Booth’s hand trembled slightly, it would have been Republicans all the way, with one important exception—an exception who remarkably never wanted to be president anyway.

Born Grover Cleveland on March 18, 1837, in New Jersey, the future Democratic president was almost singularly unambitious. A large part of that was because he couldn’t afford to be. As one of nine children, Grover Cleveland, who quickly dropped the “Stephen” from his name, grew up in a household on the edge of poverty. His father was a Presbyterian minister whose job required them to frequently move, taking them to tiny villages in New York State. Although Cleveland was able to attend school, he didn’t do so regularly. By the age of 14, he was working as a store clerk just to help support the family. Despite his lack of wealth, the future president didn’t lack dreams. As a teenager, his main dream was to go to Hamilton College and get a serious education. By 1853, it looked like this dream might come true; the family had saved enough, and Cleveland was less than a year away from turning 17. But then tragedy struck—Cleveland’s father died, robbing the family of their main source of income. The old man’s passing did to Cleveland’s dreams what a sharp pin cruelly utilized does to a child’s balloon. With college suddenly unaffordable, the young man was forced to return to work, with each dollar he made going to support his mother and younger siblings.

Yet this misfortune would soon turn out to be the making of Grover Cleveland. After a year spent teaching in a school for the blind, the future president hit on a plan. Borrowing $25, he traveled to Buffalo, where his uncle had promised him a job clerking at a law firm. But this wasn’t just a sideways career move; despite his relative lack of education, Cleveland was determined to become a lawyer. That meant four years of working hard, burning the candle at both ends and in the middle, and just about every other conceivable place too. All day long, Cleveland clerked, and through the evening, he studied law, cramming like someone permanently preparing for finals. It paid off; in 1858, this poor boy from the sticks was admitted to the bar. Perhaps more importantly, though, the experience left Cleveland with two deeply held convictions: a certainty in the value of both hard work and modest living. It would be these convictions that typified his White House tenure.

But first, the young lawyer had to get through the Civil War. Three years after Cleveland passed his exams, a South Carolina militia opened fire on Fort Sumter, kickstarting four long brutal years. While other future presidents would answer the call for the Union Army, Cleveland instead paid a Polish immigrant to go fight in his place. This was actually legal at the time, but it wouldn’t be a good look for Cleveland, being the only president from Grant to McKinley who didn’t either fight in the war or, in Chester Arthur’s case, handle logistics for the Union Army. Regardless of his level of participation, though, the Civil War still had one major impact on Cleveland’s life. As America burned, the young man took the job of assistant district attorney of Erie County. Unbeknownst to anyone, it would be the start of Cleveland’s spectacular journey into politics.

At this stage, you’re probably expecting to hear how Cleveland’s brush with low-level politics inspired him to climb the ladder, winning election after election until he finally won the biggest election of all. This just goes to show how atypical Cleveland’s career was. We mentioned before how the future president was almost singularly unambitious, so rather than finish his tenure as assistant D.A. and then set his sights higher, Cleveland instead finished his term and then opened a law practice with his friend Oscar Folsom. It wasn’t until 1870 that he drifted back toward politics, becoming sheriff of Erie County. He held that position for three years before once again going back to practicing law. Still, his short tenure as sheriff wouldn’t be forgotten by Cleveland or his enemies. With the county’s executioner often unavailable, Cleveland stepped in on multiple occasions as a substitute. It was his hand that pulled the lever, opening the trapdoor and causing the sickening crack sound as the condemned neck broke. Now, there’s no suggestion that he enjoyed this task, but it does nicely show the steel that lay at Cleveland’s core, hidden beneath the flabby exterior.

By this time, there was no doubting that “flabby” was exactly what Cleveland was becoming. Always overweight as a child, the future president entered his fourth decade with a waistline expanding like the early universe. In part, this was due to his insatiable appetites. Cleveland drank excessively, ate voraciously, and hated exercise, once declaring that bodily movement alone is among the dreary and unsatisfying things of life. By 1880, he had ballooned to nearly 280 pounds, making him the heaviest president not named William Howard Taft. Not that his weight ever seemed to bother the man who was nicknamed “Uncle Jumbo.” Cleveland was almost perversely proud of his waistline and diet. While running for sheriff, he jokingly promised to cut down four glasses of beer a day and then proceeded to take a truly gigantic glass with him every time he went out, meaning he could drink a gallon of beer without technically breaking his word. This sense of humor was one of the reasons everyone in Buffalo loved him. He had a common touch—the sort of guy who’d take you fishing, beat you at poker, and then buy your drinks, all while telling you some uproarious jokes. Oddly, this side would almost vanish once he got to Washington, but it was there at the beginning, and it’s one of the reasons he went as far as he did.

In 1881, the Democratic Party in Buffalo began casting around for a well-liked local to run as their candidate for mayor, with the jovial, overweight Cleveland fitting the bill. They asked him if he’d like to stand. Caught off guard, Cleveland agreed and amazed everyone by winning. What was even more surprising, though, was that he went on to be an excellent mayor. The moment he arrived in City Hall, the old core of steel inside Cleveland reawakened. Instead of simply signing off on his party’s wasteful spending, the new mayor took an axe to Buffalo’s budget, cutting away the fat and leaving behind a city that was leaner, less corrupt, and better run. A secret weapon was the veto. In all of his leadership roles, from Buffalo mayor all the way to president, Cleveland would become notorious for vetoing any bill he felt wasted money. Remember, this was the great era of pork-barrel politics, when throwing money at allies, patrons, and random passersby was just how you did things. But not Grover Cleveland. In his single year as Buffalo’s mayor, Cleveland exercised so much corruption and saved so much money that he became a public hero. Not just in Buffalo; at the state level, New York Democrats noticed this rising star and begged him to run for governor. Just like with the Buffalo mayoral race, Cleveland agreed, and just like in Buffalo, he won—despite having never really sought the job. As 1883 dawned, Cleveland was on a dizzying journey that had taken him to governor of America’s then most popular state in a mere two years. For most people, this would be the pinnacle of their careers. Grover Cleveland, though, was only just getting started.

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Few politicians have ever had quite as meteoric a rise as Grover Cleveland. Just check out this timeline: January 1881—nobody; January 1882—mayor of Buffalo; January 1883—governor of New York; January 1885—president. That’s the sort of leap that would make Stalin’s five-year plans look unambitious, and it was all down to simple anti-corruption efforts. When Cleveland took over New York, the state was in the grip of the Democratic machine in Tammany Hall—the same Tammany Hall that helped him get elected. But rather than repay them, Cleveland did exactly what he’d done in Buffalo. His short tenure saw him crack down on corruption, sweep away waste, and do his level best to bring Tammany Hall to heel. All of this made him super popular in New York, and that made Democrats super interested in nominating him for president. New York, you see, was key to the White House. In the previous presidential election of 1880, the popular vote had been on a knife edge, with just 1,898 votes separating James A. Garfield from his Democratic pursuer. But because Garfield had won New York, the electoral college hadn’t even been close. Ever since, Democrats had become convinced their only path to victory involved taking New York, and who better to capture the all-important state than its popular new governor?

Summer 1884 saw Cleveland gain his party’s nomination almost without having to campaign. Against him, the Republicans put up James G. Blaine. Given the GOP had won every election since 1860, they probably felt they could nominate anyone and still win. Who knows, maybe a pig in a wig would have won. But James G. Blaine didn’t. He was just too corrupt, too cozy with Wall Street—even for his party. The 1884 election saw the Mugwump faction of Republicans split off to support Cleveland. It was a brutally damaging moment for Blaine. One of his allies tried to deflect by digging up an old scandal about Cleveland fathering a child out of wedlock, but that came back to bite them when Cleveland essentially put up his hands and said, “Yeah, I missed it; the kid’s probably mine. What do you want to do about it?” It was the perfect comeback. By telling the truth, Cleveland made himself seem even more honest than ever.

Yet even now, Blaine might have still squeaked a win had it not been for one rather unfortunate speech at a New York rally. One of Blaine’s allies told voters Cleveland was the candidate of “rum, Romanism, and rebellion,” which everyone took as a swipe at the Catholic Irish. As a result, New York City’s thousands of Irish refused to back Blaine. When the results came in, the two candidates were nearly level in the popular vote. In New York, though, Blaine lost by a mere 1,200 votes. With that, the state handed Cleveland an electoral college victory. The following March, Grover Cleveland became the first Democrat inaugurated president since James Buchanan. It was a stunning victory, made all the more so by being unexpected. For the first time in 30 years—a full generation—the Democrats had taken the White House. What would they do now that they’d finally clawed back that prize? The answer, it soon turned out, was well, not a lot. As the New York Times stated in Cleveland’s 1908 obituary, “The first term of Grover Cleveland as president of the United States was not made notable by any striking events.”

And it’s here we get to one of the oddest things about Cleveland’s tenure. Despite being an anti-corruption machine in Buffalo and New York, Cleveland in Washington was curiously inactive. Sure, he still went out of his way to protect public money from wasteful spending, even torpedoing a drought relief bill because he felt it wasn’t the government’s job to bail out farmers. Sure, he still wielded his veto power—it’s commonly accepted that he vetoed more bills than all previous presidents combined. Yet he never tried to use his office to really change things or push through his vision of the country because that’s not what he saw the presidency for. In Cleveland’s mind, the president wasn’t a leader but a guardrail against Congress—a man who exercised discrete judgment to ensure the other branches didn’t go loopy. It was a self-limiting vision of the presidency, especially compared to what we expect nowadays. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty for us to talk about.

Along with his other attributes, Grover Cleveland has the distinction of being one of the only two men to enter the White House as a bachelor. While others entered as widows or were widowed while in office, only Cleveland and James Buchanan arrived in the Oval Office having never been married. But while Buchanan would remain a bachelor, Cleveland would soon find love in the most unexpected place. Frances Folsom was Cleveland’s surprise choice of bride—surprising because she was both almost 30 years younger than him and also the daughter of his ex-law partner. In fact, Cleveland had paid for her upbringing after her dad died in an accident. Yet he wouldn’t remain a father figure for very long. In 1885, Cleveland proposed to her after she visited the White House. The two were married on June 2, 1886, and just like that, the 21-year-old Frances became America’s youngest First Lady. She took up the role just as her new husband was really getting into the swing of his first term.

Despite not being an activist president, Cleveland still had some achievements. He worked to increase the size of the navy while also establishing the president’s right to appoint his own people—usually promoting people based on merit. Cleveland was one of the first presidents to really pursue a policy of meritocracy, uplifting the talented at the expense of the well-connected. But while Cleveland’s first term had some wins, it also had its controversies. The biggest of which revolved around race. As a proud Democrat, Cleveland represented the party of the South—the party of the Lost Cause and Jim Crow—and he took this role seriously. Throughout his tenure, Cleveland made a point of keeping white Southerners happy, returning Confederate flags taken in battle, opposing integrated schools, and treating attempts to restrict black political participation with a shrug. Outside the Deep South, his record was more mixed. For a while, he genuinely tried to promote the rights of immigrant Chinese workers being exploited in the West before eventually backtracking and trying to halt immigration from China. Where Native Americans were concerned, things were even murkier. Cleveland saw himself as a friend to America’s indigenous inhabitants and tried to improve their lives—improve, in air quotes—because it basically involved him going, “Hey, why don’t you guys try, uh, you know, give up your culture? I’m sure that’ll be totally fine. Just give it a go.”

Overall then, Cleveland’s first term was a mixed bag—quite successful if your thing is cutting government spending, kind of lacking if your thing is positive race relations. Of course, no one at the time knew this was only his first term, especially after 1888 delivered him a shock defeat. In the run-up to the election, Cleveland had started taking aim at tariffs, which he felt forced costs onto customers. Cutting them was broadly popular, with a notable exception among industrial workers whose jobs they protected—industrial workers who just happened to be a sizeable voting block in key swing states like New York. Can’t guess what happened that November? When 1888’s results came in, it quickly became clear Cleveland had beaten the Republican contender Benjamin Harrison in the popular vote. Unfortunately, he simultaneously lost New York by one percent and Indiana by a razor-thin margin. That meant that for only the third time in history, the guy who’d lost the popular vote would become president. Cleveland’s term was over on March 4, 1889. He left the White House, returning to private life as a lawyer.

For just about everyone, this must have seemed like the end of the 22nd president. Never before had a one-term wonder staged a comeback to the highest office in the land. But of course, Cleveland wouldn’t be just a one-term wonder. He may have been electorally defeated, but Grover Cleveland wasn’t finished. He would be back for one last non-consecutive term. Unfortunately, it would be the second term that destroyed his party.

Despite having just watched a president torpedo his election chances with tariff reform, it didn’t take long for the Republicans to do the exact same thing. In early 1890, rising GOP star William McKinley forced through a new higher tariff intended to protect factory jobs. Instead, it caused a massive spike in consumer prices just as the U.S. stock market was hit by an equally massive downturn. The result was a Republican