Grover Cleveland was born in Caldwell, New Jersey. He trained as a lawyer and began practicing law in Buffalo, New York, in 1859. He was elected mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and became governor of New York in 1882. In 1884 he became the first Democrat to be elected president. During his four-year term, he promoted changes in the civil service system. Cleveland sought re-election in 1888 but lost to Benjamin Harrison. In 1892, however, he defeated Harrison and was elected president. During this second term, he opposed currency inflation and was responsible for the repeal of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890, which he believed had added to that inflation. At the end of his second term, he retired to private life in Princeton, New Jersey, where he died in 1908.
