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 * Benjamin Harrison (US president)




HARRISON, BENJAMIN

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BENJAMIN HARRISON

Louis W. Koenig




THE presidency of Benjamin Harrison attests that the office requires a breadth
of personal qualities and political skills and that to fall short in some of
these while being strong in others can be fatal to future electoral success.
Possessor of an intellect of the first order, high moral principles,
statesmanlike perceptions, and commanding skill as a public speaker, Harrison
nonetheless failed to stir the public with magnetic responses to its problems
and to relate well to fellow party leaders, which impaired his performance of
essential party tasks. Elected president in 1888 by the constitutionally
required majority of the electoral vote but with a minority of the popular vote,
Harrison failed to win reelection in 1892. Instead of improving his tenuous
political strength, he suffered persistent decline.

Despite his failure to be reelected, Harrison's presidency was well regarded by
political connoisseurs of his time. Historian Henry Adams wrote that "Mr.
Harrison was an excellent President, a man of ability and force; perhaps the
best President the Republican party had put forward since Lincoln's death." In
1927 a longtime Washington journalist, Henry L. Stoddard, after ranking
Cleveland, Theodore Roosevelt, and Wilson as the three outstanding presidents
between Lincoln and Coolidge, added that "I feel as though I were doing an
injustice to Benjamin Harrison not to crowd him into the three, for,
intellectually, he outranked them. He was the ablest of them all." If anything,
Harrison has come to be less well regarded since these judgments were rendered.

The object of history's mercurial assessments, Benjamin Harrison, is the only
grandson of a president (William Henry Harrison) to himself become president.
Son of a congressman and great-grandson of a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, Harrison was born on 20 August 1833 on his grandfather's farm in
North Bend, Ohio, the second of nine children. His father, a farmer, served two
terms in Congress. Harrison attended Farmers' College near Cincinnati and
completed his education at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, from which he
graduated in 1852. Harrison married Caroline Lavinia Scott, daughter of the
president of a woman's college in Oxford; read law in Cincinnati; was admitted
to the bar in 1854; and moved to Indianapolis that year to commence his law
practice.

Although his father warned him that "none but knaves should ever enter the
political arena," Harrison soon occupied a succession of elective offices: city
attorney of Indianapolis, secretary of the Republican state central committee,
and reporter of the state supreme court. Commander of the Seventieth Regiment of
Indiana Volunteers in the Civil War, Harrison rose to the rank of brigadier
general. Gaining national distinction as a lawyer after the war, Harrison ran
unsuccessfully for the Indiana governorship in 1876. He was nominated shortly
before the election, when the prior nominee withdrew because of recently exposed
activities that could not bear the scrutiny of the campaign. Harrison turned
down an appointment to the cabinet of James A. Garfield, preferring to serve in
the United States Senate, to which he was elected in 1881.



As a senator, Harrison supported civil service reform to supplant the
traditional spoils system, high protective tariffs to foster industrial
development, a strong navy, and regulation of the railroads. He persistently
attacked President Cleveland's vetoes of veterans' pension bills. Harrison's
popularity with veterans was to be a major factor in winning the presidential
nomination in 1888. His bid for a second Senate term was rebuffed when Indiana's
Democratic-controlled legislature defeated his continuation by one vote. (United
States senators were then chosen by state legislatures.)

A deeply religious man, Harrison taught Sunday school and was a deacon, and
later elder, of the Presbyterian church. The day before he left Indianapolis for
his inauguration as president, Harrison passed the collection plate in the First
Presbyterian Church, his long practice. As a praying churchman, an ethical
lawyer, and an officeholder of sturdy moral courage, Harrison was regarded as an
exemplar of political decency, a reputation that accompanied him to the
presidency.




ELECTION OF 1888

Harrison was an unsuccessful dark-horse aspirant for the Republican nomination
in 1884. In 1888 he became a more formidable candidate when Indiana delegates
endorsed his nomination and the most preeminent of Republican politicians, James
G. Blaine, did not again become a candidate. With a field that at one juncture
consisted of nineteen candidates, the organizers of Harrison's race, led by
Louis T. Michener, attorney general of Indiana, concentrated on gaining the
second-choice votes of the delegates until the final ballot.



Matt Quay, overlord of Pennsylvania Republicans, offered support in return for a
blanket promise of a cabinet post. Harrison rebuffed his managers, who urged him
to accept the deal, by recalling his instruction at their departure from
Indianapolis that "purchasing capacity" must not supersede moral competency in
deciding the nomination. A critical juncture in Harrison's progress was reached
when Chauncey M. Depew, head of the New York delegation and president of the New
York Central Railroad, with the approval of the state's real political boss,
Thomas C. Platt, brought the New York delegation into the Harrison fold.

Harrison was nominated on the eighth ballot. The many ballots were telltales of
his political weakness. He subsequently acknowledged to Blaine his indebtedness:
"Only the help of your friends made success possible." Other factors favoring
Harrison were his name, his war record, and his popularity with veterans. Levi
P. Morton, a New York banker, was nominated for vice president. The Democrats
re-nominated incumbent President Grover Cleveland, with Allen G. Thurman, a
former Ohio senator, as his running mate.

Harrison conducted a "front-porch campaign" from his home. Imaginative pretexts
were spawned to bring great crowds of visitors there. On "German Day," large
delegations from Chicago and Milwaukee journeyed to Indianapolis, where they
heard from Harrison a eulogy on German virtues. For one of the more imposing
receptions, some forty thousand drummers converged from eleven states.



The principal issue in the campaign was the tariff, with Harrison calling for
high tariffs and Cleveland, who did not campaign actively because he felt it
beneath the dignity of the presidency, advocating lower tariffs. The contrasting
positions on the tariff reflected basic differences between the Republican and
Democratic parties in the decade 1884–1894, with Republicans espousing doctrines
of nationalism and active governmental intervention to promote the expansion of
the economy. The Democrats, under Cleveland, advocated states' rights and
opposed the employment of national governmental power to speed economic growth.
Harrison was severely pressured to make a strong commitment to service pensions
for Civil War veterans. Sensing that the public might not welcome costly
outlays, he limited himself to general pledges and platitudinous statements
about veterans. A skilled formulator of positions on issues that served his
political necessities, Harrison promised "liberal treatment" of veterans'
pensions.

The Harrison campaign was lavishly financed, and its prime money-raiser was John
Wanamaker, the Philadelphia department store magnate and chairman of the
campaign's finance committee. Wanamaker was given "unrestricted power in raising
and deciding upon the expenditure of funds." As a governing principle, he
believed it "right" to solicit businessmen's contributions, and an imposing fund
was raised "so quickly," Wanamaker noted, "that the Democrats never knew
anything about it." In his expenditures, Wanamaker emphasized a "campaign of
education" by salaried speakers and tons of protective tariff literature. His
ebullient enterprise prompted charges that he was softening up the public to
tolerate expensive favors from the future Harrison administration to business
contributors.



As election day neared, Harrison was confident, predicting that "if we can
secure an approximately fair election, I think we are safe." His attainment of a
majority of the electoral votes—233 to Cleveland's 168—with only a minority of
popular votes was aided by his successes in large states. His plurality in New
York of 14,000 gained him 36 electoral voles, and he repeated that pattern of
narrow popular-vote victories in such major electoral vote states as Indiana,
Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. So evenly was the vote distributed
nationwide that the election became described as one of "no decision." Cleveland
had a slight popular majority of about 100,000, largely because of increased
Democratic majorities in southern one-party states.

Another major factor was the Republican campaign fund of over $400,000, the
expenditure of which was concentrated in crucial states. Also of prime
importance was Tammany Hall's betrayal of Cleveland, which helped Harrison carry
New York. Despite Harrison's caution on veterans' pensions, the premier
veterans' organization, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), was converted by
his nomination and campaign into an instrument of the Republican party.




INAUGURATION

Harrison was inaugurated in a relentless rainstorm, with Grover Cleveland
holding an umbrella over his successor's head. His address, after crediting the
nation's growth to the benign influences of education and religion, urged that
the cotton states and mining territories attain the thriving industrial levels
of the states of the Atlantic seaboard, and toward that end, he reaffirmed his
promise of a protective tariff. Stressing that "laws are general, and their
administration should be uniform and equal," without special regard for
sections, Harrison in effect foreclosed special treatment for the South. He
urged that blacks be granted the right to vote in both North and South. He
lamented the proliferating monopolies and trusts, and he committed his
administration to the advancement of social justice.

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Harrison also urged early statehood for the territories and in general terms
advocated pensions for veterans, a statement that evoked the most enthusiastic
applause. He declared that the civil service law would be applied fully and that
party service would not become "a shield for official negligence, incompetence
or delinquency."

In foreign affairs, Harrison pledged vigilance of national honor and due
protection of the personal and commercial rights of American citizens
everywhere. He reaffirmed the Monroe Doctrine as a cornerstone of foreign policy
and urged the building of a modern navy and a first-rate merchant marine, since
the flag would follow every citizen "in all countries and many islands."
Although he declared his commitment to international peace through
noninterference in the affairs of other governments and the application of
arbitration to international disputes,

Harrison clearly accorded the development of national strength the foremost
priority.




PRESIDENTIAL STYLE AND APPOINTMENTS

The twenty-third president of the United States, barely five foot six in height
and just a bit corpulent, was fifty-five years old when inaugurated. He had
piercing blue eyes and a full, meticulously trimmed gray beard. His bearing was
energetic, dignified, and graceful. His rival, Grover Cleveland, was one of many
who were impressed by Harrison's intellectual abilities and honesty of purpose.
Writing in retrospect, editor William Allen White admired his "instinct to do
the polite, honest, dignified thing in every contingency."



In making decisions, Harrison was methodical and legalistic, his actions
unhurried and maturely deliberated, and he largely kept his own counsel. But
many were also disenchanted by aspects of his manner, a list that grew as his
administration proceeded. His legalistic style of thought, strong
intellectuality, and summoning of lofty principle provided a ready wherewithal
for rebuffing those who sought consideration or favor. Some found him impatient,
brusque, and even irascible. Governor Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio called him
"grouchy." Others thought him cold. When Speaker of the House Thomas B. Reed was
asked if he would board "the Harrison bandwagon," he replied, "I never ride an
ice-cart." A governor, calling at the White House with business to transact, was
affronted by Harrison's greeting: "I've got all these papers to look after, and
I'm going fishing at two o'clock." The president opened his watchcase and
awaited the governor's response.

In selecting his cabinet, Harrison emphasized competence and "irreproachable
character"; party activity and previous office holding were not prerequisites.
For the senior cabinet post, secretary of state, Harrison followed tradition in
appointing his party's chief claimant for the presidency, James G. Blaine. He
also followed tradition in awarding the postmaster generalship to a principal
manager of the campaign, John Wanamaker. Determined to appoint one friend from
Indiana of unquestionable loyalty and competence, Harrison chose his law
partner, William Henry Harrison Miller, as attorney general. Cabinet making was
also an occasion for making enemies. Harrison bypassed two powerful New Yorkers
eager for cabinet posts, Platt and Senator Warner Miller. When Harrison
appointed Benjamin Franklin Tracy as secretary of the navy and as the new
administration's recognition of New York, Platt and Miller became forever
hostile.



Harrison's other appointees tolerably approximated his standards, which in
effect meant that he chose men much like himself. The final list consisted of
six lawyers and two businessmen—all of them regular churchgoers, But Harrison's
cabinet making also raised a danger signal for his future. None of the eight
cabinet secretaries had worked actively for his nomination, and their selection
did not serve the traditional function of placating important party factions to
help build consensus for future policy. Harrison, in sum, had a sturdy
nonpolitical streak.

Like other presidencies of his era, Harrison's was inundated by office seekers.
The problem was compounded by the shakeout of Republicans in the preceding
Cleveland administration, the first Democratic incumbency since the Civil War.
Republicans now meant to reclaim offices in full number. Despite a plank in the
Republican platform promising further civil service reform, a clean sweep of the
nonclassified civil service quickly materialized. The chief patronage dispenser,
J. S. ("Headsman") Clark-son, removed half of the postmasters. Unlike Cleveland,
Harrison removed many officers before they completed their four-year terms.

But Harrison was unable to convert the dispensations of patronage into political
advantage. If anything, they became a sizable liability. In awarding offices,
the president offended the leading bosses, Quay of Pennsylvania and Platt of New
York. Quay, chairman of the Republican National Committee and United States
senator from Pennsylvania, presented Harrison with a lengthy list of names to
fill various federal offices. When Harrison requested information concerning the
fitness and character of each candidate, Quay demurred, noting that the entire
matter could be handled by senatorial courtesy with the president simply
ratifying what was put before him. But Harrison stood his ground and thus began
an enduring enmity. His frequent purpose to represent geographic areas rather
than senators' preferences often prompted the legislators to feel humiliated.
Unlike other presidents who delegated patronage to subordinates, Harrison
handled the task himself. His cool, expeditious management stoked further ill
will, especially his requirement that office seekers make their case standing.



While pursuing a vigorous commerce in spoils, Harrison sought to maintain his
credibility with a valued constituency, the civil service reformers. He sought
to appease them by appointing as civil service commissioner the New York civil
service reformer Theodore Roosevelt, who later noted that Harrison "gave me my
first opportunity to do big things." Despite Roosevelt's aggressive
administration, the Civil Service Reform League denounced Harrison for violating
his campaign pledges for civil service reform and the Nation characterized him
as a "subservient disciple of the spoils doctrine."

Like other presidents of his time, Harrison was caught between the reformers,
who pushed him hard and watched for backsliding while advocating extension of
the merit system to new offices and agencies, and party leaders and workers, who
reminded the president that he owed his election to their work and that their
interest could be sustained only by adequate reward. Harrison was unable to
devise a formula acceptable to both constituencies, and the compromises he
structured badly damaged his standing with party workers.


COOL RELATIONS WITH CONGRESS

In his dealings with Congress, always a complex, high-risk area for presidents,
Harrison was handicapped by the frequent poverty of his relations with Capitol
Hill's key power holders. Trouble sometimes sprang from dissatisfaction with
Harrison's award of appointments, particularly when party factions other than
those of the individual legislators were rewarded with patronage. Harrison's
penchant for appointing newspaper editors and publishers to diplomatic and other
posts angered senators aggrieved by some past journalistic attack or exposé. The
Senate, for example, rejected Harrison's nominee for ambassador to Germany, the
distinguished Cincinnati editor Murat Halstead, who had once flayed the chamber
for its easy tolerance of corruption in its ranks. Halstead's rejection was
Harrison's first defeat from his party.



The president's personality did not wear well with legislators. Senators and
congressmen were put off by his ready recourse to high principle and legal
niceties. Others were offended by his seeming coldness. "There are bitter
complaints," a critic reported. "Senators call and say their say to him, and he
stands silent.. . . As one Senator says: 'It's like talking to a hitching post.'
" Some legislators were put off by Harrison's displays of a lack of political
sense. He once grasped Quay's hand and said solemnly, "Providence has given us
the victory." The veteran boss and senator, taken aback, observed afterward that
Harrison was "a political tenderfoot. He ought to know that Providence hadn't a
damn thing to do with it!" Harrison's most vitriolic detractor was House Speaker
Thomas B. Reed. Their severest clashes were over a patronage appointment and the
president's exercise of his pardoning power, and the individuals who benefited
were the only "two personal enemies" in Reed's life. Imbued with a Whig
perspective, especially its precept of legislative supremacy, Harrison did not
initiate legislation. His most daring venture was to reecho the Republican
platform.

Harrison's approach to legislative leadership was largely one of emphasizing his
role as public leader, of presenting policy proposals in his arresting
rhetorical and an analytical style, to rally the public behind them.
Unfortunately for Harrison, these efforts were of little avail, since public
support steadily diminished as his administration proceeded. Nonetheless,
Harrison was aggressive in asserting personal influence. He held informal
dinners and receptions for legislative leaders, informing them of items he
wanted incorporated in bills. He made few vetoes, although he often used the
threat of veto profitably. In both legislative houses he was hampered by
divisions within his party over the allocation of spoils. In the Senate, where
Republicans enjoyed only a bare majority, a "silver bloc" of sixteen western
senators held the balance of power. To implement his party's platform on the
tariff and the civil rights of blacks, Harrison needed support from Silver
Republicans, as they were called, much as they needed his backing for a stronger
silver law.






DOMESTIC AFFAIRS

Unlike Cleveland, who was an adamant foe of silver, Harrison was supportive
without committing himself to the extreme of free coinage, which Silver
Republicans and other advocates of silver desired. With Treasury Secretary
William Windom, he developed a bill authorizing the issuance of treasury notes
on deposits of silver bullion. A tortuous legislative struggle, with Harrison
devising compromises and rallying votes, led to passage of the Sherman Silver
Purchase Act (July 1890), which increased the amount of silver to be coined but
stopped short of free coinage. The act required the purchase of 4.5 million
ounces of silver each month at the prevailing market price, through the issuance
of treasury notes redeemable in gold or silver. The greater outpouring of paper
money would badly strain the treasury's reserves of gold.

The momentum for silver came from the worsening plight of western and southern
farmers who carried a heavy burden of debt. Already the emerging Populist party,
which championed their needs and featured among its planks the free coinage of
silver, had acquired a strength that would afflict Harrison in future elections.
As well, free-silver Republicans from the West frequently were allied with
eastern Republicans disaffected by Harrison's patronage policies. The president
trod cautiously on the silver issue, aiming to maintain maximum political
support. Simultaneously, he wished to avoid what he termed "unsound money." He
styled himself a "bimetallist" rather than a gold standard advocate, since he
favored expanding the paper currency backed by silver. But his opposition to
free coinage cost him the support of western free-silver Republicans.



In campaign speeches, Harrison had proclaimed his belief in a protective tariff,
which promised relief from the competition of cheap foreign-made goods. A
tariff, he had contended, was beneficial to all—to workers whose jobs in effect
were protected "at good wages," to farmers who supplied their needs, to the
railroads transporting their goods. The tariff became a reality when Congressman
William McKinley of Ohio and Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island became
the chief authors of the McKinley Tariff Law of 1890, whose principal schedules
were imposed by the National Association of Wool Manufacturers, the Tin Plate
and Iron and Steel Associations, Louisiana sugar growers, and other groups. The
McKinley bill reached out to farmers by placing protective rates on agricultural
products, and it put raw sugar on the free list while compensating Louisiana and
Kansas beet growers with a bounty of 2 cents a pound. Harrison helped devise the
sugar provision when it threatened to deadlock the bill. He also over-saw the
development of a reciprocity provision that empowered the president to impose
duties on sugar, molasses, tea, coffee, and hides if he determined that nations
exporting them were imposing unequal and unreasonable duties on American goods.
No apparent heed was given to the prospect of severely rising prices, which the
new law did indeed inflict on consumers. Fortunately, Harrison and Secretary of
State Blaine negotiated more than a dozen reciprocal agreements that modified
tariff duties with leading trading partners.



A major measure that was responsive to the rising threat of the Farmers'
Alliance and the Populist party, and their likely combination with the Knights
of Labor, was the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890. For Harrison, the act redeemed
a campaign pledge. He venerated economic competition and disdained monopoly, a
sentiment he expressed on inauguration day when he was presented with the gift
of a watch-dog, an enormous Siberian bloodhound. The dog, he said, "looks very
much like an overfed monopolist." The new antitrust law, he thought, might
offset to some degree the McKinley Tariff Act by prompting lower prices under
freer competition. But Harrison did little to enforce the new law. His inaction
was encouraged by Congress' failure to appropriate funds to investigate the
trusts. The administration initiated only seven antitrust cases.

In his early policymaking, Harrison was also preoccupied with the rights of
blacks in the context of general policy toward the South. His campaign
statements were positive but general. Harrison was alert to the necessity of
strengthening Republican voting performance in the South, where his own campaign
had fared badly. From a series of measures introduced in Congress emerged a
consolidating bill known as the Lodge bill or force bill, which sought to
protect the rights of blacks at the polls by putting southern elections under
federal supervision. The bill left Republican legislators divided, again
demonstrating that Harrison could not count on his party's support for prime
legislative objectives. Senators Quay and Cameron of Pennsylvania typified a
basic cause of Republican recalcitrance by bowing to corporate interests of
their state with holdings in the South that the new legislation might impair.
Black leaders pressed Harrison to lead a public crusade for "free speech, a free
ballot and a fair return of votes at the South." The Lodge bill passed in the
House, but the nervous business interests prevailed in the Senate, where an
administration advocate of the black cause noted, "We have had too much . . . of
what may be called 'strictly business' politics."



Harrison, who considered voting rights for blacks a moral isuse, chose not to go
to the people in behalf of the Lodge bill but heeded a traditional demand of
black leaders for a share of the patronage. He promptly continued his party's
policy of rewarding a few black leaders as a bestowal of recognition on the
entire race. Generally, his favors fell on younger leaders rather than old. The
president's major coup was the installation of N. Wright Cuney to the important
post of collector of the Port of Galveston. The distinguished black leader
Frederick Douglass was named United States resident minister and consul general
to Haiti. Harrison also sought to name blacks to the postmasterships of larger
southern cities, but that policy was deterred when the Senate forced the
withdrawal of Dr. W. O. Crum's nomination for postmaster of Charleston. In net
effect, Harrison's efforts enhanced his regard in the eyes of the black press
and black leaders.

In Congress, Harrison had been known as the "Soldier's Senator" because of his
sponsorship of liberal pension legislation for Civil War veterans, and in his
presidential campaign he had declared that the nation should not use "an
apothecary's scale to weigh the rewards of the men who saved the country." The
presence of four generals in the cabinet enhanced the confidence of pension
advocates even further, and in addresses on patriotic occasions and to GAR
encampments, Harrison reemphasized his commitment to improved pensions for
veterans.



One of the president's more promising contributions to the well-being of the
veterans was his appointment of Corporal James R. Tanner, GAR commander from New
York, who had lost both legs in the Second Battle of Bull Run, as commissioner
of pensions. Tanner deemed it his duty "to assist a worthy old claimant to prove
his case rather than to hunt for technical reasons under the law to knock him
out." Even this was a modest understatement, for Tanner's many critics were soon
charging that his handouts to veterans were lavish and illegal. He shot back
defiantly that he would "drive a six-mule team through the Treasury." When his
administrative superior, Interior Secretary John W. Noble, with the president's
encouragement, commenced an investigation of Tanner's prodigal stewardship,
Tanner challenged the secretary's authority in a letter released to the press.
The intervention of friends of both Tanner and the president induced Tanner to
resign, an act that relieved the president of a burgeoning political liability.

Harrison was more successful in moving a new liberal pension law through
Congress. Under existing law, wounds or disease traceable to the war entitled
the veteran to a pension. At Harrison's urging, Congress adopted in 1890 the
Dependent and Disability Pension Act, which provided pensions for all veterans
who had served ninety days and who were unable to perform manual labor,
regardless of the cause or origin of their disability. The new law also
initiated the government's commitment to the principle that its pension system
provide for minors, dependent parents, and widows.



An explosion of expenditure promptly followed the enactment of Harrison's
measure. Between 1891 and 1895, the number of pensioners rose from 676,000 to
970,000, and by the completion of Harrison's term, the yearly appropriation for
pensions increased from $81 million to $135 million. In little more than a
decade, the new law cost the government over $1 billion. Ironically, the
extravagance of Harrison and Congress far exceeded Tanner's open-handedness. The
new pension law confirmed the growing suspicion of citizens that governmental
extravagance was moving far beyond bounds. Nonetheless, when critics referred to
Congress as the "Billion-Dollar Congress," Speaker Thomas B. Reed retorted,
"Yes, but this is a billion-dollar country."

Life in the White House was also on a large scale. Not only President and Mrs.
Harrison lived there, but many members of their family. Harrison was described
as "the only living ruler who can gather at his table four generations," which
he did daily. Those at his board included Mrs. Harrison's father and the
Harrisons' daughter, Mary, who helped with her mother's social schedule. With
Mary were her two young children. Harrison's son, Russell, divided his time
between New York and Montana, but his wife and daughter lived in the White
House. Also present was an older sister of Mrs. Harrison. Since the executive
mansion had only five bedrooms, the Harrisons found it unduly small.



The household was run methodically, with meals served at their appointed time.
Breakfast was followed by prayers led by the president. An hour in the afternoon
was reserved for a brisk walk or drive. On Washington's streets, Harrison was
often seen conversing with citizens who accosted him. The Harrisons remained
regular churchgoers; the president engaged in no business on Sunday and even
left his mail unopened. Mrs. Harrison, a lively presence, designed the family
china set; decorated hundreds of porcelain dishes, the proceeds of whose sales
were donated to charities; engaged a professor of French to instruct the wives
and daughters of cabinet families and others; and presided with charm and grace
at White House functions. The Harrisons conveyed an easy informality, a relief
to many after the stiffness of the Cleveland years. The younger Harrisons
restored dancing at the White House, which was said to have been in abeyance
since the time of Mrs. Polk.

Harrison's chief aide was Colonel Elijah Walker Halford, his executive secretary
and confidant, a former editor of the Indianapolis Journal. Like others who
served as secretaries to presidents, both before and after Harrison's time,
Halford was a factotum who dealt with Congress, the press, and party figures,
and the steady march of other White House callers. Halford was overseer of
Harrison's daily political well-being. Presidential business was aided by the
presence of telephones in the White House, although there was no telephone
operator.



Harrison was readily accessible to his cabinet secretaries and followed a
regimen of two weekly cabinet meetings and seeing each secretary on a scheduled
day each week when, as the president explained, the secretary would come with
his papers and a full consultation would proceed concerning appointments and
other important business. Harrison devoted cabinet meetings to discussions of
items that were of general interest or that at least affected more than one
department. Before signing legislation involving a department, Harrison
consulted the department head.

Of all his cabinet secretaries, Harrison's most complex relations were with
Secretary of State James G. Blaine. For decades the most popular man in American
politics, a controlling power of the Republican party, a perennial presidential
candidate, and a leader in legislation, Blaine was versatile in both foreign and
domestic policymaking. Harrison was slow in offering Blaine the post of
secretary. By delaying until mid-January 1889, he sought to avoid any appearance
that a deal had been made at the Chicago convention or that Blaine, and not
Harrison, was choosing the cabinet.

As secretary of state, Blaine was constrained by the watchful, possibly jealous,
Harrison to limited diplomatic initiatives, to concentration on inherited
problems and isolated incidents as they arose. Occasionally relations between
the two foremost Republicans of the day were brittle. As Mrs. Blaine complained,
after a sequence of her husband's disappointments, "All propositions are
rejected." Blaine was not invited to accompany the president on his extensive
political trips, although other cabinet secretaries and the vice president were.
Harrison vetoed a request that Blaine desired above all else, the appointment of
his son Walker as assistant secretary of state, for which he was well qualified
by ability and diplomatic experience. A lawyer, Walker could have been of
estimable assistance to his father, who was not a lawyer, in an administration
where legal questions were at the forefront of policymaking.



Despite the rough edges of their relationship, Blaine and Harrison were mutually
supportive in the quest for a new and better policy. Blaine, who fore-saw great
trouble under the McKinley Tariff's high rates, urged, in testimony to
congressional committees, sweeping empowerment of the executive to negotiate
reciprocity agreements with other countries for individual commodities, instead
of general reciprocity treaties.

After initial hesitation, Harrison became more hospitable to reciprocity,
influenced by Blaine's tutelage and by his understanding that western farmers
welcomed reciprocity as an avenue to enlarged markets for their produce. With
agrarian unrest and Populist strength growing, the Republicans patently needed
to be more responsive to western sentiment if they were to hold the allegiance
of that area.

It was fortunate that Harrison immersed himself in the business of his
departments from the outset. An exceptional number of his department secretaries
became ill or resigned. Blaine sustained a severe nervous disorder in 1891, a
period of intense activity in foreign affairs, and Harrison immediately became
his own secretary of state. In the same year, Interior Secretary John W. Noble
took extended leave because of health, Secretary of War Redfield Proctor
resigned to become senator from Vermont, and Treasury Secretary William Windom
died. The heavy burden of additional work prompted Harrison to observe, "The
President is a good deal like the old camp horse that Dickens described; he is
strapped up so he can't fall down."



A chief preoccupation of Harrison and his colleagues in 1890 was the midterm
congressional elections. The fast-developing image of the Harrison
administration's extravagance, the hammer blows of the McKinley Tariff on the
cost of living, and the distress of agriculture all foreordained that the
oncoming congressional elections would constitute a setback to the
administration of more severe proportions than the losses a president's party
usually sustains in such testings. For Republican congressmen, the elections
were a massacre. Before the elections, the Republicans controlled the House;
after the elections, only 88 Republicans were returned, with 235 Democrats and 9
Populists. In the Senate, the Republican majority was reduced to 8 undependable
votes from the Far West. Staunch Republican states such as Michigan and
Massachusetts went Democratic, and McKinley himself was defeated.

The elections, with their crushing impact on Republican fortunes, indicated that
the country desired major policy changes. But the result of the elections—the
decimation of House Republicans—virtually foreclosed any sizable adjustments of
domestic policy. The elections revealed fast-rising Populist strength in the
Midwest and South, which alarmed the president's chief political advisers, who
anticipated that the Senate's Silver Republicans would become all the more
unreliable. The altered congressional party picture stalled most of Harrison's
domestic program in his administration's final two years. His strength in the
Senate was sufficient to forestall repeal of legislation passed in the first
half of his administration.






FOREIGN AFFAIRS

In the depressed state of the president's political fortunes, the one area in
which there might be some hope for a brighter future was foreign policy.
Conceivably, the president could set forth appealing prospects and manage crises
in ways that would attract the attention and approval of the public, and
simultaneously diminish its absorption in domestic affairs.

In the initial two years of his term, Harrison had by no means been inattentive
to foreign affairs. He entered office intent on abandoning isolation as a
cornerstone of foreign policy, and his selection of Blaine as secretary of state
augured an era of initiative and creativity. He and Blaine seized the
opportunity provided by a law enacted late in the Cleveland administration that
requested the president to convene a meeting of Latin American countries.
Arrangements begun by Cleveland were completed by Harrison and Blaine. They
agreed that the nation's growing industrial production made expansion of foreign
markets a principal goal. Discussions preparatory to the conference, scheduled
to begin on 2 October 1889, looked toward a customs union, inter-American rail
and steamship lines, trademark and copyright laws, and arbitration treaties.



A major feature of this first Pan-American Conference, to which seventeen Latin
American nations sent delegates to Washington, was a six-thousand-mile tour to
impress the visitors with the size, wealth, and manufacturing capabilities of
the United States. When the conference reassembled, with Blaine presiding with
brilliance and tact and Harrison watchful of progress and problems, the United
States offered its plan for a customs union, through which tariff barriers would
be reduced and trade with Europe curtailed.

Despite Blaine's skilled advocacy, the resolution was voted down as unworkable.
In a second thrust, Blaine urged that machinery be created for the arbitration
of disputes. Again the proposal lost, by a wide margin. National rivalries and
fears of United States dominance shaped these decisions. The conference's most
signal achievement was the creation of what became known as the Pan American
Union, a clearinghouse for disseminating information and fostering cooperation
among the member nations. At other junctures, Harrison advocated construction of
a Central American canal and increased U.S. presence in Latin America. In both
Latin America and the Pacific, Harrison pursued expansionist policies sometimes
expressed in a bellicose manner. Although his efforts produced few tangible
successes, he heralded the nation's subsequent imperial policies of 1898.



The heritage of foreign policy issues from the Cleveland administration also
included the Bering Sea controversy, which centered on the wanton slaughter of
fur seals off the Alaskan coast. The scalers, mostly Canadians who stationed
their vessels outside the three-mile limit, soon threatened the seals with
extinction. Shortly before Harrison's inauguration, the president was authorized
by Congress to seize vessels encroaching upon American rights in the "waters of
the Bering Sea." Harrison promptly warned all persons "against entering the
Bering Sea for the unlawful hunting of fur-bearing animals, "and revenue cutters
began intercepting Canadian vessels. An intricate diplomatic controversy ensued,
and continued after the termination of the Harrison administration.

More suited to Harrison's need to distract the public from the inadequacies of
domestic policy was the Mafia affair in New Orleans. The murder of the local
police superintendent on 16 October 1890 was attributed to the Mafia, inspired
by the heavy migration of Italians, many from Sicily, where the Mafia Black Hand
Society flourished. Numerous Italians in New Orleans were arrested, and fearful
of violence, Harrison requested a full report from the governor of Louisiana. In
March 1891 a jury found six defendants not guilty and a judge declared a
mistrial for the remaining three. An aroused local citizenry stormed the prison
and shot down some prisoners and hanged others.



Because Blaine was ill, Harrison composed a telegram to the governor of
Louisiana deploring the massacre and requesting protection for Italians in New
Orleans. Italian Americans elsewhere in the country called for full and prompt
justice. The outraged Italian government demanded indemnity. Harrison directed
the American minister in Rome to explain "the embarrassing gap in
federalism—that in such cases the state alone has jurisdiction." Although talk
of war raged in both countries, in time tempers cooled and the incident was
officially closed when Harrison, nudged by Blaine, paid a modest indemnity to
the Italian government.

Even more distracting was a stormy interlude in relations with Chile when its
government was overthrown in 1891. Harrison disdained the rebels who, he said,
"do not know how to use victory and moderation," and he delayed his conferral of
recognition. Meanwhile, sailors of the USS Baltimore on shore leave in
Valparaiso, Chile, engaged in a saloon brawl in which two sailors were killed,
seventeen others were injured, and still others were chased by rioters, aided by
police, around the city.

The crisis in Chilean relations coincided with Blaine's absence as secretary of
state and Halford's illness, a time of many burdens for the president. When
Chile made no apology or expression of regret, Harrison directed that a sharp
note be dispatched complaining of the delay. With Chilean legal processes moving
slowly in dealing with alleged wrongdoers, Harrison declared in his annual
message to Congress (9 December 1891) that if the Chilean investigation did not
provide satisfaction to the United States, he would again bring the matter
before Congress "for such action as may be necessary." When the Chilean foreign
minister responded by maligning the president, Harrison, who regarded this new
affront as "an atrocious insult to the American government," ordered the navy to
prepare for action. Blaine urged caution and understanding for the Chileans amid
angry cabinet discussions, and on one occasion, the president leaned forward and
with an emphatic gesture declared, "Mr. Secretary, that insult was to the
uniform of the United States sailors."



For a time the public was deeply stirred by hostility toward Chile. A new
Chilean foreign minister fortunately proved more accommodating and made an
unexceptionable apology. Even as the apology was being decoded, Harrison milked
the episode for all of its political worth by dispatching another special
message to Congress (25 January 1892), detailing the crisis at great length, and
submitted the irritating diplomatic papers "for the grave and patriotic
consideration" of Congress "and for such action as may be deemed appropriate."

Harrison, in effect, was inviting Congress to declare war at a moment when Chile
was about to back down. The Democratic press, agitated by the president's
warlike moves, accused him of maneuvering to commence a war to assure his
election with the slogan "Don't Swap Horses in Midstream." Soon Blaine, mindful
of the lofty sentiments of the Pan-American Conference, induced Harrison to mute
his bellicosity, and the controversy petered out when the Chilean apology was
released, followed by an indemnity from its government.

Harrison inherited the perplexities of policymaking concerning the distant Samoa
Islands, where Britain, Germany, and the United States had long been jockeying
for ascendance. Relations with Germany were particularly edgy when Harrison
began his administration, but Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, who wished
to avoid further trouble, convened the Berlin Conference (29 April 1889). Thanks
to Blaine's firm and efficient management of negotiations, Samoa's native ruling
dynasty was preserved and a tripartite protectorate was established. Germany and
Britain were not enthusiastic about the arrangement, but Blaine's skill and
tenacity induced their acceptance.



Harrison's top priority in the Pacific was the Hawaiian Islands, which he meant
to annex to the United States. Opportunity knocked late in his administration
when a revolution toppled Queen Liliuokalani. The upheaval prompted the United
States minister, John L. Stevens, to call for troops—which were dispatched—to
protect American lives and property. Stevens and Provisional President Sanford
Dole prepared a treaty of annexation. In a report to Harrison, Stevens noted
that "the Hawaiian pear is now fully ripe, and this is the golden hour for the
United States to pluck it."

Harrison was eager to complete the annexation as the crowning achievement of his
foreign policy. Although it was late in his term, he placed a treaty before the
Senate (16 February 1893) and urged "annexation full and complete." It was
essential, the president said, that no other foreign power acquire Hawaii, since
"such a possession would not consist with our safety and with the peace of the
world." Although Harrison enjoyed the support of most House Republicans and
advocates of a big navy and territorial expansion, his project foundered in the
Senate, where the Democrats, who controlled the chamber, refused to act before
the expiration of Harrison's term. When restored to the presidency, Grover
Cleveland, a resolute anti-annexationist, withdrew the treaty.



Although Harrison seemingly used foreign policy to satisfy his own political
necessities, and especially the gaining of reelection, much of what he did
mirrored basic forces and longings of American society. When he became
president, Reconstruction was virtually complete, industrial production was fast
expanding, and American manufacturers were eager for foreign markets as outlets
for their burgeoning surpluses. National consciousness was growing, patriotic
societies were proliferating, and Harrison's plan to build a new and modern navy
was widely applauded. In the dawning era of big warships, those built by
Harrison's administration were the biggest in the world. A big navy required
coaling stations, and Harrison's assertiveness in the Pacific meant to fulfill
that necessity.

Although Harrison's handling of foreign policy problems was thoroughly imperial,
his use of presidential power in forwarding his designs was, with few
exceptions, scrupulously constitutional. He was fastidious in requesting
empowerments from Congress, in subjecting his policy initiatives to its
approval, and in respecting its constitutionally conferred power to declare war.
For major projects, he depended on the treaty power rather than the executive
agreement, which can bypass the legislative power. He was solicitous of public
approval and alert to the need for informing the public of foreign affairs
problems through messages to Congress and his extensive speechmaking across the
country.



Foreign policy failed to arouse any tidal wave of demand for Harrison's
renomination. Many Republican professionals regarded that eventuality with
apprehension and distaste. Minnesota Senator W. D. Washburn represented that
opinion when he said, "There are two serious objections to Harrison's
re-nomination; first, no one cares anything for him personally, secondly, no
one, as far as I know, thinks he could be elected if nominated." Harrison's most
dedicated opponents were the bosses, led by Quay and Platt, who resented the
president's handling of patronage.




ELECTION OF 1892 AND RETIREMENT

The bosses searched for a candidate to oppose the president. They looked eagerly
to Blaine, who had resigned as secretary of state for reasons never made clear,
but he was plagued by illness and soon made a public statement that his name
would not go before the Republicans' Minneapolis convention. The statement also
mentioned nothing about Harrison, his record, or his renomination. The omission
kept the opposition to Harrison alive, as the bosses turned next to McKinley and
John Sherman of Ohio, the two candidates that Harrison's managers feared most.



Harrison did little to help his cause. He was distracted by the serious illness
of his wife, a condition first diagnosed as nervous prostration. But as the
Minneapolis convention neared, Harrison changed course and sent for his top
political adviser, Louis T. Michener. After reviewing the attacks by the bosses
and other critics, he declared, "No Harrison ever retreated in the presence of a
foe without giving battle, and I have determined to stand and fight." With
demonic toil, Harrison's managers struggled to round up delegates and to ward
off Mark Hanna's efforts to forestall a first-ballot nomination for Harrison,
which might then clear the way for his protégé, McKinley. But Hanna's strategy
failed, and Harrison captured the nomination on the first ballot. A potent
factor in his success was the belief of rank-and-file Republicans that they
could again win with Harrison. The rejected bosses extracted a measure of
satisfaction by vetoing the renomination of Levi Morton for vice president and
substituting Whitelaw Reid, also of New York and publisher of the New York
Tribune. The maneuver was laid to the New York delegation and Boss Platt.

With Grover Cleveland as the Democratic nominee, the election of 1892 became the
only one in which the nominees of both major parties had served as president.
Harrison did little campaigning, with Mrs. Harrison's health in continuing
decline, her condition now diagnosed as pulmonary tuberculosis. In deference to
Mrs. Harrison, who died midway in the election, Cleveland too did not campaign.
The Democratic platform's strongest words were reserved for the McKinley Tariff,
which it denounced as the "culminating atrocity of class legislation."



Harrison's cause was gravely injured by a strike at the Homestead Works of the
Carnegie Steel Company when twenty men were killed in a battle between
locked-out workers and armed Pinkerton detectives. A military force was posted
to guard the nonunion labor that was brought in. Harrison's image with labor
worsened when he dispatched federal troops to the Coeur d'Alene mines in Idaho
in July 1892 at the governor's request. The strike was crushed, and union miners
retreated into the mountains.

In the 1892 election, Cleveland avenged the defeat he sustained in 1888. He
secured a popular majority of slightly under 375,000 votes and won 277 electoral
votes to 145 for Harrison and 22 for Populist party candidate James B. Weaver.
Although the Republican party spent $6 million on the campaign, nearly double
its outlay for 1888, Harrison, the results implied, failed to respond
efficiently to the problems and concerns of labor and farmers in the severe
recession of 1893. Their dissatisfactions were reflected in the rapid growth of
the Populist party. The McKinley Tariff and the steep increases it wrought in
the living costs of the general public helped assure Harrison's downfall.

After completing his presidential term, Harrison returned to Indianapolis and
resumed his law practice, which he limited to important and often remunerative
cases. He delivered a series of law lectures at Stanford University, which were
published in 1901 as Views of an Ex-President. The former president, at
sixty-two, remarried. His bride, Mary Lord Dimmick, was the daughter of the
first Mrs. Harrison's sister and had attended her aunt during her final months
of illness. They had one child, Elizabeth. In 1899, Harrison represented
Venezuela in the arbitration of its dispute with Great Britain over the British
Guiana boundary. He died of pneumonia at his home in Indianapolis on 13 March
1901. The last Civil War general to serve as president, Harrison lived to see
his policies vindicated in the Spanish-American War, the termination of the 1893
economic crisis, and Republican recapture of the presidency after Cleveland's
term.






BIBLIOGRAPHY

Harry J. Sievers, Benjamin Harrison: Hoosier Warrior (1833–1865), Benjamin
Harrison: Hoosier Statesman (1865–1888), and Benjamin Harrison: Hoosier
President (The White House and After) (Indianapolis, Ind., 1952–1968; Newtown,
Conn., 1997), constitute the most detailed biography of Harrison, with an
extensive Harrison bibliography. Homer E. Socolofsky and Allan B. Spetter, The
Presidency of Benjamin Harrison (Lawrence, Kans., 1987), is the leading
interpretive study of the Harrison presidency. Leonard D. White, The Republican
Era, 1869–1901: A Study in Administrative History (New York, 1958), a
distinguished administrative history, discusses Harrison and his cabinet and
civil service reform. Alice Felt Tyler, The Foreign Policy of James G. Blaine
(Minneapolis, Minn., 1927), contains an illuminating account of Blaine as
secretary of state. David Saville Muzzey, James G. Blaine: A Political Idol of
Other Days (New York, 1934), the standard biography of Blaine, is still very
serviceable. William Alexander Robinson, Thomas B. Reed: Parliamentarian (New
York, 1930), provides a perspective on the Harrison administration by the
Speaker of the House.



D. M. Dozer, "Benjamin Harrison and the Presidential Campaign of 1892," in
American Historical Review 54, no. 1 (1948), is an excellent analysis of
Harrison's strategies and the context in which they evolved. Herbert A. Gibbons,
John Wanamaker, 2 vols. (New York, 1926), is especially good on Wanamaker's role
in the 1888 campaign.

Donald L. McMurry, "The Bureau of Pensions During the Administration of
President Harrison," in Mississippi Valley Historical Review 13, no. 3 (1926),
ably presents the pension issue and the administration of the Pension Bureau.
Mary R. Dearing, Veterans in Politics: The Story of the G.A.R. (Baton Rouge,
La., 1952), is extremely useful in its treatment of veterans' pension policy in
the Harrison administration. Vincent P. De Santis, Republicans Face the Southern
Question (Baltimore, 1959), is a valuable treatment of the Harrison
administration's relations with black leaders and of pertinent policy questions.

Presidents: A Reference History Koenig, Louis W.
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HARRISON, BENJAMIN

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views 1,427,920 updated May 17 2018



HARRISON, BENJAMIN

23rd president, 1889–1893



Born: August 20, 1833

Died: March 13, 1901

Vice President: Levi P. Morton

First Lady: Caroline Scott Harrison

Children: Russell, Mary, Elizabeth

Benjamin Harrison may have been destined to enter politics based on his family's
history. His great-grandfather, also named Benjamin, signed the Declaration of
Independence; his grandfather was the ninth president; his father was a
congressman.

Benjamin Harrison was born and raised in Ohio. He studied law and became a
lawyer. He also fought in the Civil War, rising to the rank of general. He was
elected to the senate in 1880 and ran for president in 1888.

Much of the campaign of 1888 centered around the issue of tariffs—taxes on
foreign goods that protected American manufacturers. Harrison and the Republican
Party believed that tariffs should be high. They found great financial support
among wealthy business leaders and workers in large industrial states, such as
Indiana and New York. Harrison was considered a cold, unfriendly man. He
disliked running for office and refused to campaign. Instead, he gave short
speeches from the porch of his Indiana home.


 * Democrats called Harrison "Little Ben," because he was 5'6" tall.
 * Harrison's grandfather, William H. Harrison, was the 9th president of the
   United States.
 * While in the Senate, Harrison advocated civil rights for African Americans.
 * Harrison was the first president to live in the White House with electrical
   lights.

Harrison's Democratic opponent, popular incumbent Grover Cleveland, supported
lower tariffs to allow greater competition. In what was widely considered one of
the most corrupt elections of the 1800s, Cleveland, who received 100,000 more
popular votes than Harrison, lost in the electoral college.

Harrison was married to Caroline Scott on April 6, 1896. They had three
children: Russell, Mary, and Elizabeth. Mrs. Harrison died at the White House in
1892 of tuberculosis.

During Harrison's term, technology and invention boomed in the United States.
Automobiles and electric lights were among the modern conveniences people
enjoyed then.




WHEN HARRISON WAS IN OFFICE

1889Native American land in Oklahoma was opened to white settlers, setting off
the first of several land rushes.
In Johnstown, Pennsylvania, the collapse of a dam led to a flood that killed
2,000 people.
Newspaper reporter Nellie Bly traveled around the world in 72 days, a new
record.
The Eiffel Tower was dedicated in Paris.
Washington, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota became states.1890At Wounded
Knee, South Dakota, U.S. troops killed more than 100 Sioux, many of them women
and children.
Idaho became a state.
Wyoming became a state, the first to enter the Union with voting rights for
women.1891Whitcomb Judson patented the zipper.1892Ellis Island, an immigrant
entry point in New York Harbor, opened its doors.

Harrison ran for reelection in 1892, but was defeated by the man who had
preceded him, Grover Cleveland.




ON HARRISON'S INAUGURATION DAY

Benjamin Harrison was inaugurated almost 100 years after George Washington took
the first oath of office. While Washington had been a unanimous choice, Harrison
had been elected largely because of party vote-buying in states with large
electoral votes. The nation was on the verge of an economic depression, yet big
businesses such as energy, railroads, and steel were pouring large amounts of
money into the campaign funds of lawmakers such as Harrison who were sympathetic
to their cause. For that reason, suspicion and distrust swirled around the
president as he took office.


BENJAMIN HARRISON'S INAUGURAL ADDRESS

In Washington, D.C., Monday, March 4, 1889

Fellow-Citizens:

THERE is no constitutional or legal requirement that the President shall take
the oath of office in the presence of the people, but there is so manifest an
appropriateness in the public induction to office of the chief executive officer
of the nation that from the beginning of the Government the people, to whose
service the official oath consecrates the officer, have been called to witness
the solemn ceremonial. The oath taken in the presence of the people becomes a
mutual covenant. The officer covenants to serve the whole body of the people by
a faithful execution of the laws, so that they may be the unfailing defense and
security of those who respect and observe them, and that neither wealth,
station, nor the power of combinations shall be able to evade their just
penalties or to wrest them from a beneficent public purpose to serve the ends of
cruelty or selfishness.



My promise is spoken; yours unspoken, but not the less real and solemn. The
people of every State have here their representatives. Surely I do not
misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the
people covenant with me and with each other to-day to support and defend the
Constitution and the Union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all the
laws and each to every other citizen his equal civil and political rights.
Entering thus solemnly into covenant with each other, we may reverently invoke
and confidently expect the favor and help of Almighty God—that He will give to
me wisdom, strength, and fidelity, and to our people a spirit of fraternity and
a love of righteousness and peace.

This occasion derives peculiar interest from the fact that the Presidential term
which begins this day is the twenty-sixth under our Constitution. The first
inauguration of President Washington took place in New York, where Congress was
then sitting, on the 30th day of April, 1789, having been deferred by reason of
delays attending the organization of the Congress and the canvass of the
electoral vote. Our people have already worthily observed the centennials of the
Declaration of Independence, of the battle of Yorktown, and of the adoption of
the Constitution, and will shortly celebrate in New York the institution of the
second great department of our constitutional scheme of government. When the
centennial of the institution of the judicial department, by the organization of
the Supreme Court, shall have been suitably observed, as I trust it will be, our
nation will have fully entered its second century.



I will not attempt to note the marvelous and in great part happy contrasts
between our country as it steps over the threshold into its second century of
organized existence under the Constitution and that weak but wisely ordered
young nation that looked undauntedly down the first century, when all its years
stretched out before it.

Our people will not fail at this time to recall the incidents which accompanied
the institution of government under the Constitution, or to find inspiration and
guidance in the teachings and example of Washington and his great associates,
and hope and courage in the contrast which thirty-eight populous and prosperous
States offer to the thirteen States, weak in everything except courage and the
love of liberty, that then fringed our Atlantic seaboard.

The Territory of Dakota has now a population greater than any of the original
States (except Virginia) and greater than the aggregate of five of the smaller
States in 1790. The center of population when our national capital was located
was east of Baltimore, and it was argued by many well-informed persons that it
would move eastward rather than westward; yet in 1880 it was found to be near
Cincinnati, and the new census about to be taken will show another stride to the
westward. That which was the body has come to be only the rich fringe of the
nation's robe. But our growth has not been limited to territory, population and
aggregate wealth, marvelous as it has been in each of those directions. The
masses of our people are better fed, clothed, and housed than their fathers
were. The facilities for popular education have been vastly enlarged and more
generally diffused.



The virtues of courage and patriotism have given recent proof of their continued
presence and increasing power in the hearts and over the lives of our people.
The influences of religion have been multiplied and strengthened. The sweet
offices of charity have greatly increased. The virtue of temperance is held in
higher estimation. We have not attained an ideal condition. Not all of our
people are happy and prosperous; not all of them are virtuous and law-abiding.
But on the whole the opportunities offered to the individual to secure the
comforts of life are better than are found elsewhere and largely better than
they were here one hundred years ago.

The surrender of a large measure of sovereignty to the General Government,
effected by the adoption of the Constitution, was not accomplished until the
suggestions of reason were strongly reenforced by the more imperative voice of
experience. The divergent interests of peace speedily demanded a "more perfect
union." The merchant, the shipmaster, and the manufacturer discovered and
disclosed to our statesmen and to the people that commercial emancipation must
be added to the political freedom which had been so bravely won. The commercial
policy of the mother country had not relaxed any of its hard and oppressive
features. To hold in check the development of our commercial marine, to prevent
or retard the establishment and growth of manufactures in the States, and so to
secure the American market for their shops and the carrying trade for their
ships, was the policy of European statesmen, and was pursued with the most
selfish vigor.



Petitions poured in upon Congress urging the imposition of discriminating duties
that should encourage the production of needed things at home. The patriotism of
the people, which no longer found afield of exercise in war, was energetically
directed to the duty of equipping the young Republic for the defense of its
independence by making its people self-dependent. Societies for the promotion of
home manufactures and for encouraging the use of domestics in the dress of the
people were organized in many of the States. The revival at the end of the
century of the same patriotic interest in the preservation and development of
domestic industries and the defense of our working people against injurious
foreign competition is an incident worthy of attention.1 It is not a departure
but a return that we have witnessed. The protective policy had then its
opponents. The argument was made, as now, that its benefits inured to particular
classes or sections.

If the question became in any sense or at any time sectional, it was only
because slavery existed in some of the States. But for this there was no reason
why the cotton-producing States should not have led or walked abreast with the
New England States in the production of cotton fabrics. There was this reason
only why the States that divide with Pennsylvania the mineral treasures of the
great southeastern and central mountain ranges should have been so tardy in
bringing to the smelting furnace and to the mill the coal and iron from their
near opposing hillsides. Mill fires were lighted at the funeral pile of slavery.
The emancipation proclamation was heard in the depths of the earth as well as in
the sky; men were made free, and material things became our better servants.



The sectional element has happily been eliminated from the tariff discussion. We
have no longer States that are necessarily only planting States. None are
excluded from achieving that diversification of pursuits among the people which
brings wealth and contentment. The cotton plantation will not be less valuable
when the product is spun in the country town by operatives whose necessities
call for diversified crops and create a home demand for garden and agricultural
products. Every new mine, furnace, and factory is an extension of the productive
capacity of the State more real and valuable than added territory.

Shall the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon the skirts
of progress? How long will those who rejoice that slavery no longer exists
cherish or tolerate the incapacities it put upon their communities? I look
hopefully to the continuance of our protective system and to the consequent
development of manufacturing and mining enterprises in the States hitherto
wholly given to agriculture as a potent influence in the perfect unification of
our people. The men who have invested their capital in these enterprises, the
farmers who have felt the benefit of their neighborhood, and the men who work in
shop or field will not fail to find and to defend a community of interest.

Is it not quite possible that the farmers and the promoters of the great mining
and manufacturing enterprises which have recently been established in the South
may yet find that the free ballot of the workingman, without distinction of
race, is needed for their defense as well as for his own? I do not doubt that if
those men in the South who now accept the tariff views of Clay and the
constitutional expositions of Webster would courageously avow and defend their
real convictions they would not find it difficult, by friendly instruction and
cooperation, to make the black man their efficient and safe ally, not only in
establishing correct principles in our national administration, but in
preserving for their local communities the benefits of social order and
economical and honest government. At least until the good offices of kindness
and education have been fairly tried the contrary conclusion can not be
plausibly urged.



I have altogether rejected the suggestion of a special Executive policy for any
section of our country. It is the duty of the Executive to administer and
enforce in the methods and by the instrumentalities pointed out and provided by
the Constitution all the laws enacted by Congress. These laws are general and
their administration should be uniform and equal. As a citizen may not elect
what laws he will obey, neither may the Executive eject which he will enforce.
The duty to obey and to execute embraces the Constitution in its entirety and
the whole code of laws enacted under it. The evil example of permitting
individuals, corporations, or communities to nullify the laws because they cross
some selfish or local interest or prejudices is full of danger, not only to the
nation at large, but much more to those who use this pernicious expedient to
escape their just obligations or to obtain an unjust advantage over others. They
will presently themselves be compelled to appeal to the law for protection, and
those who would use the law as a defense must not deny that use of it to others.

If our great corporations would more scrupulously observe their legal
limitations and duties, they would have less cause to complain of the unlawful
limitations of their rights or of violent interference with their operations.
The community that by concert, open or secret, among its citizens denies to a
portion of its members their plain rights under the law has severed the only
safe bond of social order and prosperity. The evil works from a bad center both
ways. It demoralizes those who practice it and destroys the faith of those who
suffer by it in the efficiency of the law as a safe protector. The man in whose
breast that faith has been darkened is naturally the subject of dangerous and
uncanny suggestions. Those who use unlawful methods, if moved by no higher
motive than the selfishness that prompted them, may well stop and inquire what
is to be the end of this.



An unlawful expedient can not become a permanent condition of government. If the
educated and influential classes in a community either practice or connive at
the systematic violation of laws that seem to them to cross their convenience,
what can they expect when the lesson that convenience or a supposed class
interest is a sufficient cause for lawlessness has been well learned by the
ignorant classes? A community where law is the rule of conduct and where courts,
not mobs, execute its penalties is the only attractive field for business
investments and honest labor.

Our naturalization laws should be so amended as to make the inquiry into the
character and good disposition of persons applying for citizenship more careful
and searching. Our existing laws have been in their administration an
unimpressive and often an unintelligible form. We accept the man as a citizen
without any knowledge of his fitness, and he assumes the duties of citizenship
without any knowledge as to what they are. The privileges of American
citizenship are so great and its duties so grave that we may well insist upon a
good knowledge of every person applying for citizenship and a good knowledge by
him of our institutions. We should not cease to be hospitable to immigration,
but we should cease to be careless as to the character of it. There are men of
all races, even the best, whose coming is necessarily a burden upon our public
revenues or a threat to social order.2 These should be identified and excluded.



We have happily maintained a policy of avoiding all interference with European
affairs. We have been only interested spectators of their contentions in
diplomacy and in war, ready to use our friendly offices to promote peace, but
never obtruding our advice and never attempting unfairly to coin the distresses
of other powers into commercial advantage to ourselves. We have a just right to
expect that our European policy will be the American policy of European courts.

It is so manifestly incompatible with those precautions for our peace and safety
which all the great powers habitually observe and enforce in matters affecting
them that a shorter waterway between our eastern and western seaboards should be
dominated by any European Government that we may confidently expect that such a
purpose will not be entertained by any friendly power.

We shall in the future, as in the past, use every endeavor to maintain and
enlarge our friendly relations with all the great powers, but they will not
expect us to look kindly upon any project that would leave us subject to the
dangers of a hostile observation or environment. We have not sought to dominate
or to absorb any of our weaker neighbors, but rather to aid and encourage them
to establish free and stable governments resting upon the consent of their own
people. We have a clear right to expect, therefore, that no European Government
will seek to establish colonial dependencies upon the territory of these
independent American States. That which a sense of justice restrains us from
seeking they may be reasonably expected willingly to forego.



It must not be assumed, however, that our interests are so exclusively American
that our entire inattention to any events that may transpire elsewhere can be
taken for granted. Our citizens domiciled for purposes of trade in all countries
and in many of the islands of the sea demand and will have our adequate care in
their personal and commercial rights. The necessities of our Navy require
convenient coaling stations and dock and harbor privileges. These and other
trading privileges we will feel free to obtain only by means that do not in any
degree partake of coercion, however feeble the government from which we ask such
concessions. But having fairly obtained them by methods and for purposes
entirely consistent with the most friendly disposition toward all other powers,
our consent will be necessary to any modification or impairment of the
concession.

We shall neither fail to respect the flag of any friendly nation or the just
rights of its citizens, nor to exact the like treatment for our own. Calmness,
justice, and consideration should characterize our diplomacy. The offices of an
intelligent diplomacy or of friendly arbitration in proper cases should be
adequate to the peaceful adjustment of all international difficulties. By such
methods we will make our contribution to the world's peace, which no nation
values more highly, and avoid the opprobrium which must fall upon the nation
that ruthlessly breaks it.



The duty devolved by law upon the President to nominate and, by and with the
advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all public officers whose
appointment is not otherwise provided for in the Constitution or by act of
Congress has become very burdensome and its wise and efficient discharge full of
difficulty. The civil list is so large that a personal knowledge of any large
number of the applicants is impossible. The President must rely upon the
representations of others, and these are often made inconsiderately and without
any just sense of responsibility. I have a right, I think, to insist that those
who volunteer or are invited to give advice as to appointments shall exercise
consideration and fidelity. A high sense of duty and an ambition to improve the
service should characterize all public officers.

There are many ways in which the convenience and comfort of those who have
business with our public offices may be promoted by a thoughtful and obliging
officer, and I shall expect those whom I may appoint to justify their selection
by a conspicuous efficiency in the discharge of their duties. Honorable party
service will certainly not be esteemed by me a disqualification for public
office, but it will in no case be allowed to serve as a shield of official
negligence, incompetency, or delinquency. It is entirely creditable to seek
public office by proper methods and with proper motives, and all applicants will
be treated with consideration; but I shall need, and the heads of Departments
will need, time for inquiry and deliberation. Persistent importunity will not,
therefore, be the best support of an application for office. Heads of
Departments, bureaus, and all other public officers having any duty connected
therewith will be expected to enforce the civil-service law fully and without
evasion. Beyond this obvious duty I hope to do something more to advance the
reform of the civil service. The ideal, or even my own ideal, I shall probably
not attain. Retrospect will be a safer basis of judgment than promises. We shall
not, however, I am sure, be able to put our civil service upon a nonpartisan
basis until we have secured an incumbency that fair-minded men of the opposition
will approve for impartiality and integrity. As the number of such in the civil
list is increased removals from office will diminish.

While a Treasury surplus is not the greatest evil, it is a serious evil. Our
revenue should be ample to meet the ordinary annual demands upon our Treasury,
with a sufficient margin for those extraordinary but scarcely less imperative
demands which arise now and then. Expenditure should always be made with economy
and only upon public necessity. Wastefulness, profligacy, or favoritism in
public expenditures is criminal. But there is nothing in the condition of our
country or of our people to suggest that anything presently necessary to the
public prosperity, security, or honor should be unduly postponed.

It will be the duty of Congress wisely to forecast and estimate these
extraordinary demands, and, having added them to our ordinary expenditures, to
so adjust our revenue laws that no considerable annual surplus will remain. We
will fortunately be able to apply to the redemption of the public debt any small
and unforeseen excess of revenue. This is better than to reduce our income below
our necessary expenditures, with the resulting choice between another change of
our revenue laws and an increase of the public debt. It is quite possible, I am
sure, to effect the necessary reduction in our revenues without breaking down
our protective tariff or seriously injuring any domestic industry.

The construction of a sufficient number of modern war ships and of their
necessary armament should progress as rapidly as is consistent with care and
perfection in plans and workmanship. The spirit, courage, and skill of our naval
officers and seamen have many times in our history given to weak ships and
inefficient guns a rating greatly beyond that of the naval list. That they will
again do so upon occasion I do not doubt; but they ought not, by premeditation
or neglect, to be left to the risks and exigencies of an unequal combat. We
should encourage the establishment of American steamship lines. The exchanges of
commerce demand stated, reliable, and rapid means of communication, and until
these are provided the development of our trade with the States lying south of
us is impossible.

Our pension laws should give more adequate and discriminating relief to the
Union soldiers and sailors and to their widows and orphans. Such occasions as
this should remind us that we owe everything to their valor and sacrifice.

It is a subject of congratulation that there is a near prospect of the admission
into the Union of the Dakotas and Montana and Washington Territories. This act
of justice has been unreasonably delayed in the case of some of them. The people
who have settled these Territories are intelligent, enterprising, and patriotic,
and the accession of these new States will add strength to the nation. It is due
to the settlers in the Territories who have availed themselves of the
invitations of our land laws to make homes upon the public domain that their
titles should be speedily adjusted and their honest entries confirmed by patent.

It is very gratifying to observe the general interest now being manifested in
the reform of our election laws. Those who have been for years calling attention
to the pressing necessity of throwing about the ballot box and about the elector
further safeguards, in order that our elections might not only be free and pure,
but might clearly appear to be so, will welcome the accession of any who did not
so soon discover the need of reform. The National Congress has not as yet taken
control of elections in that case over which the Constitution gives it
jurisdiction, but has accepted and adopted the election laws of the several
States, provided penalties for their violation and a method of supervision. Only
the inefficiency of the State laws or an unfair partisan administration of them
could suggest a departure from this policy.

It was clearly, however, in the contemplation of the framers of the Constitution
that such an exigency might arise, and provision was wisely made for it. The
freedom of the ballot is a condition of our national life, and no power vested
in Congress or in the Executive to secure or perpetuate it should remain unused
upon occasion. The people of all the Congressional districts have an equal
interest that the election in each shall truly express the views and wishes of a
majority of the qualified electors residing within it. The results of such
elections are not local, and the insistence of electors residing in other
districts that they shall be pure and free does not savor at all of
impertinence.

If in any of the States the public security is thought to be threatened by
ignorance among the electors, the obvious remedy is education. The sympathy and
help of our people will not be withheld from any community struggling with
special embarrassments or difficulties connected with the suffrage if the
remedies proposed proceed upon lawful lines and are promoted by just and
honorable methods. How shall those who practice election frauds recover that
respect for the sanctity of the ballot which is the first condition and
obligation of good citizenship?3 The man who has come to regard the ballot box
as a juggler's hat has renounced his allegiance.

Let us exalt patriotism and moderate our party contentions. Let those who would
die for the flag on the field of battle give a better proof of their patriotism
and a higher glory to their country by promoting fraternity and justice. A party
success that is achieved by unfair methods or by practices that partake of
revolution is hurtful and evanescent even from a party standpoint. We should
hold our differing opinions in mutual respect, and, having submitted them to the
arbitrament of the ballot, should accept an adverse judgment with the same
respect that we would have demanded of our opponents if the decision had been in
our favor.

No other people have a government more worthy of their respect and love or a
land so magnificent in extent, so pleasant to look upon, and so full of generous
suggestion to enterprise and labor. God has placed upon our head a diadem and
has laid at our feet power and wealth beyond definition or calculation. But we
must not forget that we take these gifts upon the condition that justice and
mercy shall hold the reins of power and that the upward avenues of hope shall be
free to all the people.

I do not mistrust the future. Dangers have been in frequent ambush along our
path, but we have uncovered and vanquished them all. Passion has swept some of
our communities, but only to give us a new demonstration that the great body of
our people are stable, patriotic, and law-abiding. No political party can long
pursue advantage at the expense of public honor or by rude and indecent methods
without protest and fatal disaffection in its own body. The peaceful agencies of
commerce are more fully revealing the necessary unity of all our communities,
and the increasing intercourse of our people is promoting mutual respect. We
shall find unalloyed pleasure in the revelation which our next census will make
of the swift development of the great resources of some of the States. Each
State will bring its generous contribution to the great aggregate of the
nation's increase. And when the harvests from the fields, the cattle from the
hills, and the ores of the earth shall have been weighed, counted, and valued,
we will turn from them all to crown with the highest honor the State that has
most promoted education, virtue, justice, and patriotism among its people.

QUOTES TO NOTE

 1. "The revival at the end of the century..." Harrison compares the debate over
    tariffs that has defined the campaign with the dispute over the issue that
    had occurred 100 years earlier. He considers his view "patriotic," although
    the United States in 1889 was one of the most powerful industrial nations in
    the world, and not a small newly formed nation as it was in 1789.
 2. "There are men of all races..." Harrison refers to enormous numbers of
    immigrants entering the United States at that time. Shortly after his
    inaugurations, the Ellis Island immigration center would open to screen
    immigrants arriving in the United States. Harrison emphasizes the problem by
    saying "even the best" races—he means white people—are a burden on the
    country.
 3. "How shall those who practice election frauds..." Harrison is referring to
    the growing discrimination faced by African Americans who attempted to vote
    in the South. He would make it a key part of his term in office to support
    legislation that guaranteed voting rights.

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HARRISON, BENJAMIN

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views 2,857,742 updated May 29 2018



BENJAMIN HARRISON

BORN: August 20, 1833 • North Bend, Ohio

DIED: March 13, 1901 • Indianapolis, Indiana

U.S. president

Benjamin Harrison was America's twenty-third president. He was also the grandson
of the nation's ninth president, William Henry Harrison (1773–1841; served
1841), and the great-grandson of Colonel Benjamin Harrison (1750–1808), one of
the signers of the Declaration of Independence. His time in the White House was
largely uneventful, and historians generally consider Harrison a mediocre
president. He was not the best or most active president, but he was not the
worst, either.

"I do the same thing every day. I eat three meals, sleep six hours and read
dusty old books the rest of the time. My life is about as devoid of anything
funny as the great desert is of grass."


FROM FARM TO WAR

Benjamin Harrison was born on August 20, 1833, in the house belonging to his
grandfather, William Henry Harrison. He spent his childhood on The Point, the
Harrison family farm, located in North Bend, Ohio. Harrison received his
education in a one-room schoolhouse as well as from a tutor at home. Between
1847 and 1850, he attended a preparatory school (a school that prepares students
for college) in Cincinnati. In 1852, he graduated from Miami University in
Oxford, Ohio.

Harrison loved to read, and it was no secret he preferred the company of books
to people. He became an effective public speaker over the span of two years,
when he studied law from 1852 to 1854. In 1853, he married Caroline Scott, and
the couple moved to Indianapolis, Indiana. There, Harrison quickly became active
in the Republican Party. (One of the oldest political parties in the United
States, the Republican Party was founded as an antislavery party in the
mid-1800s; it transformed into one associated with conservative fiscal and
social policies.) In 1862, he joined the Union (North) Army by way of the
Seventieth Regiment of the Indiana volunteers during the Civil War (1861–65). He
would leave the war as a brigadier general.


GAINS POLITICAL EXPERIENCE

Harrison returned to political activism upon returning home from the war. He was
heavily involved in supporting the presidential campaigns of Rutherford B. Hayes
(1822–93; served 1877–81) and James A. Garfield (1831–81; served 1881). Both men
won their elections. Harrison was named to the U.S. Senate in 1880 (senators
were appointed by state legislature until 1913, when they began to be elected by
popular vote). As a senator, Harrison supported pensions for Civil War veterans,
high tariffs (taxes), and a modern navy.

The Indiana state legislature was taken over by Democrats in 1887, and Harrison
was not returned to the Senate. The following year, he ran in the presidential
election. In addition to the issues he chose to support as a senator, he upheld
conservation of wilderness regions and a limited reform of civil service
(government jobs). Harrison broke from traditional Republican viewpoint in his
opposition to the Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), which ended Chinese immigration
to the United States.

The main issue of the 1888 race was tariffs. These were taxes imposed on goods
imported from other countries. Republicans generally favored high taxes because
that money went into the government budget and would give the government more
spending money. Democrats generally favored lower tariffs because they believed
overseas competition was healthy for the American economy.


BECOMES TWENTY-THIRD PRESIDENT

Harrison's campaign was unique. He was the first candidate to participate in
what became known as "front-porch speeches." Rather than tour the country giving
speeches in formal settings, Harrison would stand on the front porch of his home
in Indiana and speak to the public. This folksy atmosphere helped people to
consider the president a regular man with a regular family and life. They felt
that what mattered to them, mattered to him. Harrison got favorable press
coverage from these speeches. His opponent, President Grover Cleveland
(1837–1908; served 1885–89 and 1893–97; see entry), gave just one speech during
the 1888 campaign.

Although Cleveland won 90,000 more popular votes (votes from citizens) than
Harrison, Harrison won the election with 233 of the electoral votes (compared
with Cleveland's 168). Electoral votes are the votes a candidate receives for
winning the majority of popular votes of a particular state. If a candidate wins
the most popular votes in a state, he wins all of that state's electoral votes.
Not all states are worth the same number of electoral votes. That number is
determined by how many U.S. representatives a state has in the House plus two,
one for each of the state's U.S. senators. In order to win a presidential
election, a candidate must have more than 50 percent of electoral votes. It is
very rare that a presidential candidate would win more popular votes than his
opponent, yet fail to win the election. In Harrison's case, a Republican
president was back in the White House. Not only that, the Republicans controlled
the Senate and the House of Representatives.


LIFE AND LAW ON THE HOMEFRONT

The most important piece of legislation to cross Harrison's desk was the
McKinley Tariff of 1890. Named after U.S. representative William McKinley
(1843–1901; see entry) of Ohio, the law raised protective tariffs an average of
49.5 percent, to make them the highest rates in the nation's history. That same
bill also expanded the powers of the president in regard to foreign trade. For
example, under the McKinley Tariff, Harrison could negotiate agreements with
overseas manufacturers without getting approval from Congress. If he wanted to,
the president could offer lower import rates for specific products in exchange
for lower rates on American exports. The new law also allowed him to establish a
federal committee to authorize and oversee the many details and functions of
foreign trade.


SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT

The Harrison administration also passed the Sherman Antitrust Act in 1890. By
the late nineteenth century, big businesses and giant corporations had taken
over the economy. American consumers were forced into paying high prices for
things they needed, and Republicans and Democrats alike called for reform of
regulations in industry. The loudest outcry was against monopolies, businesses
that have total control over a sector of the economy, including prices. With a
monopoly, there is no competition.

As a result of the public's fury, Harrison passed the Sherman Antitrust Act,
which was named after Republican U.S. senator John Sherman (1823–1900) of Ohio.
Some states had already passed laws restricting the use of trusts (companies
working together to take total control of production and distribution of a
product or service). Those laws applied only to business conducted within those
states, however. Under the Sherman Act, trusts and monopolies were illegal both
within states and when dealing with foreign trade.

The passing of the act was a step in the right direction, but like many other
laws passed during the Gilded Age, it had little effect on reality. (The Gilded
Age was the period in history following the Civil War and Reconstruction
[roughly the final twenty-three years of the nineteenth century], characterized
by a ruthless pursuit of profit, an exterior of showiness and grandeur, and
immeasurable political corruption.) Disobeying the terms of the Sherman
Antitrust Act brought a maximum fine of $5,000 and a one-year prison term. Those
who were inclined to break the law were not put off by a fine they could easily
pay. For these industrialists, the benefits of a trust far outweighed the
punishment for building it.

The federal government had the power to dissolve trusts, but the Supreme Court
kept them from implementing the act for years. The Sherman Act had little effect
until Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919; served 1901–9; see entry) took office in
1901. Known as the "trustbusting" president, Roosevelt sought prosecutions of
trusts he thought were ignoring the law.


SHERMAN SILVER PURCHASE ACT

Senator Sherman sponsored another important bill that Harrison passed, again in
1890. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act had the U.S. Treasury purchase 4.5 million
ounces of silver at market price each month. The silver was bought with Treasury
notes that could be redeemed in either gold or silver. Citizens who held notes
turned them in for gold because they got more money for each note that way. In
doing so, they nearly emptied the Treasury's gold supply. Silver production
increased as a result. Silver prices then went down, rather than up, which was
the original intent of the act.

The act was repealed in 1893, when America was experiencing the worst economic
decline in its history up to that time. Historians cite a number of factors that
contributed to the panic, but the Sherman Silver Purchase Act is the most
responsible. In addition to depleting the nation's gold reserves and the
decrease in silver prices, railroads went bankrupt (ran out of money and could
not repay their debts) and hundreds of banks failed. The results of the
financial crisis were high unemployment rates and a shortage of money
circulating in the economy.


LAND REVISION ACT OF 1891

Harrison, always a supporter of conservation, passed the Land Revision Act of
1891. This law gave the president the authority to set aside public lands for
the sake of preservation. Harrison authorized the first forest reserve in
Yellowstone, Wyoming.


ACTIVE OVERSEAS

Harrison was protective of American interests overseas, and worked hard to
maintain that protection. He threatened war with Chile when American sailors
were injured in the country's port city of Valparaiso. After discussing the
incident with Chile's leaders, Harrison received an apology and the United
States was paid $75,000 in reparations (compensation for wrongdoing).

Harrison believed in modernizing and expanding the U.S. Navy. Under his
direction, the navy was reorganized and developed into a fleet of seven armored
ships.


PAN-AMERICANISM

Since the early 1800s, Latin American countries had struggled for independence.
They looked to the United States as a model, and President Harrison accepted
that responsibility. Working closely with Secretary of State James Blaine
(1830–1893; see box), Harrison organized the first Pan-American Conference (the
first conference of or relating to North, South, and Central America) in
Washington, D.C., in December 1889. Every nation from these regions except the
Dominican Republic was represented at the meeting. The mission of the conference
was to promote peace throughout the world. Delegates worked together to develop
treaties and guidelines for nations to refer to in times of international
conflict and dispute.


JAMES BLAINE: PERSISTENT POLITICIAN

James G. Blaine was born in Pennsylvania in 1830. He spent his entire childhood
there and did not leave the state until he moved to Maine in 1854. There, he
worked as a newspaper editor. He also was a founder of the Republican Party in
Maine.

Respected for his tireless activism and commitment to his party, Blaine was
elected to the state legislature for four years (1859–62). He served the last
two as speaker (leader) of the state House of Representatives. In 1862, he was
elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he would serve for thirteen
years. He was Speaker of the House (leader of the entire U.S. House of
Representatives; a highly powerful position) for the last six years of his
tenure.

Blaine was appointed U.S. senator in 1876 to fill a vacancy and quickly became a
leading candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. His reputation
suffered when the press publicized a scandal over an Arkansas railroad that
Blaine supposedly aided by using his power as speaker. His accusers claimed he
used his stature to obtain a land grant for the railroad and then sold the
railroad's bonds for a profit. Blaine lost the nomination to Rutherford B.
Hayes. Blaine sought the presidential nomination again in 1880, but lost to
James A. Garfield. When Garfield won the presidency, he appointed Blaine
secretary of state. Garfield was assassinated shortly after taking office,
however, and Blaine resigned only a few months after Garfield's successor,
Chester A. Arthur, took office. He retired for a brief time.

Although finally nominated as the Republican presidential candidate in 1884,
Blaine's scandalous past interfered with his efforts, and he could not beat
Democrat Grover Cleveland. He used the next four years to give strong vocal
support to the tariff and continued to work within the Republican Party.

Blaine surprised everyone in the presidential election of 1888 by not seeking
the nomination and supporting Benjamin Harrison instead. The following year,
Blaine became secretary of state once again. As part of the Harrison
administration, he helped the president develop and maintain improved foreign
relations with Latin America. His relationship with Harrison worsened over the
year. Harrison, long known as being a cold man who did not listen to or enjoy
being around people, often felt overshadowed by his charming and friendly
secretary of state. Many people believed Blaine made most of Harrison's
decisions for him, but a more modern analysis of the Harrison administration
shows that this was not the case. Regardless, the two men had less to say to one
another as Harrison's term progressed. In 1892, Blaine resigned his position and
once more sought the Republican nomination for the next presidential election.
He failed, as the incumbent Harrison again won the nomination in 1892.

Blaine died in Washington, D.C., just four days before his sixty-third birthday,
in 1893. He had been suffering from several health problems for years.

An offshoot of the Pan-American Conference was the formation of the Commercial
Bureau of American Republics. This group was renamed the Pan-American Union at
the fourth conference in 1910. With membership from all three Americas, the
Union strove to maintain peace through what they called collective security,
which meant that they agreed to help each other in times of trouble. Maintaining
and storing official documents was the responsibility of the Union, and it
provided useful technical and informational services to the Americas. In 1948, a
meeting was held with the single purpose of banding together to fight communism
(economic theory of public ownership and control over all production and
distribution) in the Americas. The Union was again renamed; as the Organization
of American States, it remains active in the twenty-first century. Its members
come from all thirty-five independent nations of the Americas.


TERRITORIAL EXPANSION

Harrison believed in territorial expansion, or adding more land to the United
States. He felt strongly that Hawaii should become a U.S. territory. Hawaii was
important to the United States for a variety of reasons. It was a key spot for
America's whaling ships, and hundreds of missionaries traveled to the islands
every year. Sugar was an important export of Hawaii's, and the region's economy
and politics soon relied heavily on the United States. Furthermore, Harrison did
not want Hawaii to become annexed (taken over) by any European country. Such
control would have given Europe even more power than it already had.

Sugar cane farmers in Hawaii also wanted the annexation of their homeland to
America. They believed that such a move would end the threat of a high export
tariff on their product. Harrison tried to convince the Senate to approve the
annexation, but he failed. Eventually, Hawaii was annexed in 1898 under
President William McKinley. Because of his early efforts, however, Harrison is
often credited as being the president who put America on the path to becoming an
empire.

More states were admitted to the Union during Harrison's term than during any
other presidential administration: North Dakota and South Dakota (November 2,
1889), Montana (November 8, 1889), Washington (November 11, 1889), Idaho (July
3, 1890), and Wyoming (July 10, 1890). On January 1, 1892, Ellis Island in New
York Harbor became the official entry point for the millions of immigrants
coming to America's shores. America's population increased by more than five
million in the years 1888 to 1892; half of the new people were immigrants.


THE 1892 ELECTION

The election of 1892 was of great historic importance: It was the first election
in which both candidates had been president. Harrison beat President Cleveland
in the 1888 election, but he did not beat him again.

Harrison had done well for himself and his country with his foreign agenda, but
his handling of domestic issues (situations within the country) was not looked
upon so favorably. Never a personable fellow, his cold manner and his refusal to
listen to advice turned even his own party against him. The president's
popularity suffered over three major issues: his support of the McKinley Tariff,
which millions of Americans took as a sign that he had for gotten the average
citizen and was siding with big business; his lack of response to the plight of
farmers in the South and West, who were suffering from the fallout of high
tariffs and so were financially in danger; and the fact that throughout his
administration, American workers participated in a series of violent labor
strikes(when workers refuse to work until negotiations for improvements are
made), which again linked the president to monopoly industrialists and unethical
bankers.

In addition to these perceptions, many Americans were not in favor of how easily
Harrison spent federal dollars. Early in Harrison's administration, Congress was
nicknamed the "Billion Dollar Congress" because of all the money that was
appropriated. No president before him had so freely spent money in peacetime.
According to Harrison's biography on the Web site The White House, Thomas B.
Reed (1839–1902), twice Speaker of the House of Representatives, answered
critics by saying, "This is a billion dollar country."

Cleveland won the election with 277 electoral votes, as compared with Harrison's
145. Cleveland also won nearly 373,000 more popular votes than his opponent. It
was the most decisive victory of any presidential election in twenty years.


HIS LAST YEARS

Harrison's wife Caroline had died in 1892 from tuberculosis (lung disease).
Together, they had three children, one of whom died in infancy. In 1896, he
married again, this time to a widow named Mary Scott Lord Dimmick; she was his
first wife's niece. They had one daughter.

Although he was stiff and formal with the public, Harrison was a loving father
and husband. His grandchildren were especially dear to him, and he often quit
working at noon so that he could have time to play with them.

By the time of his defeat, Harrison was ready to leave the White House. His
feelings toward the public were about the same as theirs were for him. Upon
learning of his defeat, he told his family he felt as if he had been freed from
prison. He spent his last years active in law.

In February 1901, Harrison came down with a cold that eventually turned into
pneumonia. He died in his Indianapolis home on March 13, 1901.


FOR MORE INFORMATION


BOOKS

American Presidents in World History. Vol. 3. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
2003.

Cherny, Robert W. American Politics in the Gilded Age: 1868–1900. Wheeling, IL:
Harlan Davidson, 1997.

Sievers, Harry J. Benjamin Harrison: Hoosier President. Newtown, CT: American
Political Biography Press, 1997.

Stevens, Rita. Benjamin Harrison, 23rd President of the United States. Ada, OK:
Garrett Educational Corp., 1989.

Williams, Jean Kinney. Benjamin Harrison: America's 23rd President. New York:
Children's Press, 2004.


WEB SITES

"Benjamin Harrison." American
President.org.http://americanpresident.org/history/benjaminharrison/biography
(accessed on September 2, 2006).

"Benjamin Harrison." The White
House.http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/bh23.html (accessed on
September 2, 2006).

The President Benjamin Harrison Home.http://www.presidentbenjaminharrison.org/
(accessed on September 2, 2006).

"Who Was James Blaine?" Blaine
Amendments.http://www.blaineamendments.org/Intro/JGB.html (accessed on September
2, 2006).

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HARRISON, BENJAMIN

gale
views 3,679,283 updated May 29 2018



BENJAMIN HARRISON

Benjamin Harrison was born in 1833 in North Bend, Ohio . The grandson of the
ninth U.S. president, William Henry Harrison (1773–1841; served 1841), Benjamin
Harrison became a lawyer and moved to Indiana , where he volunteered in
Republican Party campaigns. Harrison fought in the American Civil War (1861–65)
as a colonel. When he returned home, he built a reputation as an excellent
lawyer.

Harrison served in the U.S. Senate throughout most of the 1880s, where he
supported Native Americans and Civil War veterans. In the 1888 presidential
campaign, he defended high tariffs (taxes imposed on goods imported from other
countries), conservation of wilderness lands, and limited civil service reform.
He broke from the traditional Republican viewpoint in his opposition to the
Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which ended Chinese immigration to the United
States. (See Asian Immigration .)

Harrison was the first candidate to participate in what became known as “front
porch speeches.” People would visit him at his home in Indiana and listen to him
speak from his front porch. This campaign style encouraged citizens to think of
Harrison as one of them, a regular man with a regular home and family. These
speeches were not as informal as they appeared; Harrison's campaign managers
carefully selected which newspaper reporters and community members would attend.

Harrison beat his opponent, President Grover Cleveland (1837–1908; served
1885–89 and 1893–97). A Republican president was back in office, and for the
first time in years, the Republican Party dominated both the executive branch
and legislative branch of the federal government.


IN THE WHITE HOUSE

Harrison was not a unique leader, but his administration was efficient and
productive. Some of the legislation that passed during his presidency had a
major impact on American business. Harrison supported the McKinley Tariff of
1890, a law that raised tariff rates an average of 49.5 percent. The bill also
gave the president expanded powers in the area of foreign trade.

The American public hated giant corporations and big businesses that took over
the economy and forced consumers into paying high fees and prices. Republicans
and Democrats alike rallied together in the call for reform of dishonest
business practices such as monopolies . (Monopolies are businesses that have
total control over a certain sector of the economy, including prices; in a
monopoly, there is no competition.) As a result of this public outcry, the
Harrison administration supported and passed the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
This act was the first federal law to regulate big business. The Sherman
Antitrust Act made it a federal crime for businesses to form trusts (the concept
of several companies banding together to form an organization that limits
competition by controlling the production and distribution of a product or
service). Although it had flaws, it was an important first step.

Another important piece of legislation passed during Harrison's term was the
Sherman Silver Purchase Act of 1890. This bill had the U.S. Treasury purchase
4.5 million ounces of silver at market price each month. The silver was bought
with treasury notes that could be redeemed in either gold or silver. Holders of
these notes were so eager to turn them in for gold (because they received more
money per note that way) that they nearly emptied the Treasury's supply. The act
increased the production of silver, which sent silver prices down rather than
up, and that was the intent. The act was repealed in 1893, the year of the worst
economic decline the United States had ever experienced. Historians point to
several factors that contributed to the Panic of 1893 , including the Sherman
Silver Purchase Act. In addition to the depletion of the nation's gold reserves
and the decrease in silver prices, railroads went bankrupt and banks across the
country began to fail. The result was high unemployment and a severe shortage of
money circulating in the economy.

Harrison's foreign policy Harrison was one of the most active presidents in the
area of foreign diplomacy. He took the United States to the brink of war with
Chile over an incident involving American sailors who were harmed in the port
city of Valparaiso. After discussion between the countries' leaders, Chile
apologized and paid the United States $75,000 for the incident.

In 1889, the president called the first modern Pan-American Conference in
Washington, D.C. Leaders from North, Central, and South America attended the
conference in an effort to develop military, economic, social, political, and
commercial cooperation between the three Americas. Conference attendees
developed treaties on how to resolve international conflicts and revised tariff
levels. In addition, an organization that would eventually be known as the
Pan-American Union was established. The union offered technical and
informational services to the Americas and provided a safe place for official
documents. By forming various councils, the union took on the responsibility for
furthering cooperative relations throughout the Americas. Its founding is
celebrated on Pan-American Day each year in April.

As successful as he was in other foreign endeavors, Harrison did not achieve his
goal where Hawaii was concerned. Harrison was in favor of annexing (adding
another U.S. territory) Hawaii, but he was unable to convince the Senate to do
so. Still, because of his efforts and because Hawaii did eventually become part
of the United States, modern historians credit Harrison and his administration
for putting the United States on its path to becoming an empire.

Harrison's popularity wanes Harrison's popularity among the public took a severe
blow on three national issues. The first was his support of the McKinley Tariff.
Millions of citizens lost trust in a president who seemed to be siding more with
big-business interests than with the average working man. The second issue
involved the dissatisfaction of farmers—those hardest hit by the depression—in
the South and West. Harrison had done virtually nothing to improve the farmers’
situation, so he lost their support. Finally, a series of violent labor strikes
linked Harrison to monopoly industrialists and bankers. Voters did not feel
represented in the White House.

Furthermore, Harrison passed a great deal of Republican legislation in his first
year in office. Because of the amount of money Congress spent, it soon became
known as the “Billion Dollar” Congress.

Harrison could not undo the damage his image had suffered. He had never been
known publicly as an overly friendly man, yet he put his family at the center of
his life. (In fact, Harrison's campaign activities in 1892 were very minimal due
to the illness of first lady Caroline Harrison. She died two weeks before the
election.) Harrison's tendency to be a private man, coupled with the unpopular
events throughout his term, led him directly out of the White House. Grover
Cleveland was reelected in the 1892 election. Upon learning of his defeat,
Harrison told his family he felt like he had been freed from prison. He died in
1901.

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BENJAMIN HARRISON

gale
views 1,837,787 updated Jun 11 2018



BENJAMIN HARRISON

> U.S. president Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901), though possibly the dullest
> personality ever to inhabit the White House, was nevertheless a competent
> enough president during one of the most eventful administrations of the late
> 19th century.

Benjamin Harrison was born in North Bend, Ohio, on Aug. 20, 1833. The Harrison
had been among the most illustrious families of colonial Virginia, and Benjamin
was the namesake of a Revolutionary soldier and signer of the Declaration of
Independence. His grandfather, William Henry Harrison, who had transported the
family to Ohio, was elected president as "Old Tippecanoe" in 1840.

Harrison graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1852. He Married
Caroline Scott of Oxford the following year. He read law for 2 years in
Cincinnati, then moved to Indianapolis, Ind., where he established a prosperous
practice.


REPUBLICAN POLITICS

Harrison became a Republican immediately. He was known as a good political
orator, although today his speeches seem to combine only triteness and pedantry
with 19th-century bombast. His political career advanced slowly but steadily
until the Civil War: he was city attorney of Indianapolis in 1857, secretary of
the Republican State Central Committee in 1858, and reporter of the Indiana
supreme Court in 1860. The last position proved profitable, as Harrison drew
large royalties for many years from his compilation of Indiana laws.

Unlike many political contemporaries, Harrison sat out the first campaign of the
Civil War. In 1862, however, he organized the Union's 70th Indiana Infantry and
was commissioned as its colonel. A typical volunteer officer, he knew nothing of
war making and was fortunate in being assigned to guard the newly captured
Louisville and Nashville Railroad.

Harrison was not popular with his troops; apparently he was something of a
martinet, and the personal coldness of which many contemporaries would later
complain was already manifest. The dullness of guard duty also may have affected
the unhappy command, but that was relieved in 1864, when Harrison and his men
joined Gen. William T. Sherman. Harrison stayed at the front only briefly, as he
was quickly requested to return to Indiana in order to head off a Democratic
political threat in the fall elections. He rejoined Sherman, but only after
Sherman's famous, devastating march through Georgia was complete; Harrison was
brevetted as brigadier general, more for political than military services.


POSTWAR CAREER AND CHARACTER

After the war Harrison built his legal practice into one of the most successful
in Indiana. Still, he never neglected Republican politics. He supported the
victorious radical faction of the party and during the 1870s became a spokesman
for the equally dominant fiscal conservatives. He was unsuccessful as candidate
for governor of Indiana in 1876 but continued to serve the party. In 1877 he
again donned military uniform briefly to command troops during the national
railroad strike. He was a solidly conservative Republican.

Harrison's career improved sharply in 1880. He was elected to the U.S. Senate
and played an important role in winning the Republican presidential nomination
for James A. Garfield. Harrison was himself a "dark horse" candidate for the
nomination in 1884, but, realizing that it was the charismatic James G. Blaine's
year, he refused to allow his name before the convention. It was this
combination of stern party regularity and fortuitous personal decisions— rather
than any particular brilliance—that accounted for Harrison's rise.

Harrison's years in the Senate were undistinguished. He played on Civil War
emotionalism and appealed to anti-British sentiment but made no significant
contributions to the great issues of the day. Rather, he turned his considerable
legal talents to constructing interminable constitutional briefs for petty and
partisan purposes. But his services paid off when he was nominated to run for
president in 1888.


HARRISON AS PRESIDENT

In the presidential campaign Harrison lost the popular vote but won in the
Electoral College. More than any previous Republican president, he committed his
party to certain high financial and "big business" interests when, through his
postmaster general, he systematized the solicitation of party funds. His
administration sat during the "Billion Dollar Congress" elected in 1890, the
first Congress ever to expend more than $1 billion. That famous Congress also
passed a high tariff law containing reciprocity provisions (which Harrison
largely wrote) that facilitated American economic expansion abroad, the landmark
Sherman Antitrust Act, and the ill-fated Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Harrison's
term also saw the Republican party finally abandon its commitment to defend the
civil rights of Southern African Americans when Congress failed to pass a law
designed to protect them.

Harrison kept in touch with his Congress on the various questions although, in
the fashion of the time, he took a minimal part in the public debates. The
accomplishments of the "Billion Dollar Congress, " however, bear his mark: the
carelessly drawn acts, intended as much to obfuscate as clarify, showed the lack
of interest or inability to comprehend long-term effects which characterized
Harrison's career.

Harrison was ultimately no more popular with his own party than with the
Democrats. Short and portly with a stony, uncomely countenance, he seemed
incapable of a warm personal relationship, let alone of the glad-handing
conviviality which late-19th-century American politics frequently required.
Still, he was the incumbent in 1892 and secured his party's renomination—only to
lose the election to Grover Cleveland.

Actually, Harrison was to be just as happy about his defeat. Cleveland's second
term was a disaster, marked by agricultural and industrial unrest with which
Harrison could hardly have better coped. And Harrison was personally more suited
for private life. His first wife had died in the White House, leaving him with
two children. He married Mary Dimmick, by whom he had another child. He returned
to his legal practice in Indiana, represented Venezuela in a celebrated boundary
dispute with Great Britain, and wrote several books, including Views of an
Ex-President (1901) and This Country of Ours (1897), a popular textbook for
several years. He died of pneumonia on March 13, 1901.


FURTHER READING

Harry J. Sievers, Benjamin Harrison (3 vols., 1952-1968; vol. 1, 2d ed. 1960),
is scarcely inspiring but includes an exhaustively detailed source book. John A.
Garraty, The New Commonwealth: 1877-1890 (1968), provides an antidote to
Sievers's uncritical admiration. The presidential election of 1888 is covered in
Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., ed., History of American Presidential Elections (4
vols., 1971). H. Wayne Morgan, From Hayes to McKinley: National Party Politics,
1877-1896 (1969), is the best recent survey of late-19th-century politics. □

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HARRISON, BENJAMIN (1833-1901)

gale
views 1,601,041 updated May 14 2018



BENJAMIN HARRISON (1833-1901)

President of the united states, 1889-1893

Sources

A One-Term President. The grandson of President William Henry Harrison
(1773-1841) and the great-great grandson of Benjamin Harrison (1726-1791), who
signed the Declaration of Inde-pendence, Benjamin Harrison was little known
outside Indiana before he ran for president in 1888. I During his one term in
office he was often overshadowed by his well-known secretary of state, James G.
Blaine, and he lacked the political clout to hold his own in the sharply divided
battles over tariffs and civil-service re-form that dominated American politics
in the 1880s and 1890s.

Background. Benjamin Harrison was born on 20 August 1833 in North Bend, Ohio,
and grew up on his family’s nearby farm. Graduating from Miami University in
Oxford, Ohio, in 1852, Harrison began reading law in Cincinnati and married
Caroline Scott on 20 October 1853. After he was admitted to the Ohio bar in
1854, the couple settled in Indianapolis, where he established a law practice
and became involved in local Republican politics. He was elected city attorney
in 1857, secretary to the Indiana Republican Central Committee in 1858, and
reporter to the state supreme court in 1860. He served in the Civil War,
fighting in Gen. William Sherman’s Atlanta campaign and the Union victory at
Nashville and rising to the rank of brigadier general. In 1864, while still
serving in the military, he was reelected to the lucrative post of supreme court
reporter. After the war he continued law practice.

Political Career. Harrison ran for governor of Indiana in 1876 and lost. He
continued to be active in the national Republican Party, and President
Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him to the Mississippi River Commission in 1879.
In 1880 the Indiana legislature elected him to the U.S. Senate, where he
established a reputation for favoring civil-service reform, pensions for Civil
War vet-erans, and regulation of railroads. After the Democrats gained control
of the Indiana legislature, Harrison was not elected to a second term in the
Senate. In 1888 he won the Republican presidential nomination. He conducted a
campaign from his front porch, granting extensive interviews to visitors.
Although the incumbent president, Grover Cleveland, earned more popular votes,
Harrison won the election in the electoral college.

Harrison’s Presidency. Harrison supported the modernization of the navy and U.S.
expansion overseas, backing the establishment of a U.S.-German-British
protectorate in Samoa and the treaty for the annexation of Hawaii. In 1891 he
took a vigorous stand after a mob in Valparaiso, Chile, killed two American
sailors on shore leave and injured several others. Secretary of State Blaine
demanded and got an official apology and a $75,000 indemnity after Harrison sent
a message to Congress that carne close to asking for a declaration of war.
Although Harrison favored civil-service reform, he appointed many of his
Republican backers to office, losing support among reformers in his own party.
In 1890 he supported the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, which lay the groundwork for
government regulation of big business; the McKinley Tariff Act, which raised
import duties; and the Dependent Pension Act, which greatly increased the number
of Civil War veterans who were eligible for pensions. When he ran for reelection
in 1892, he was hurt by his stands in favor of raising tariffs, which had led to
higher retail prices, and veterans’ pensions, which were popular among former
soldiers but had proved a drain on the federal budget. His civil-service
appoint-ments had also lost him support from a significant segment of his own
party. Like other presidents of his the period, Harrison was caught in a
dilemma: support civil-service reform and alienate his own party structure or
appoint followers and lose the support of reformers.

Later Years. After losing the 1892 presidential election to Cleveland, Harrison
returned to an active law practice. He also remained active in politics,
campaigning for candidates in 1894 and 1896. He died on 13 March 1901.


SOURCES

Harry J. Sievers, Benjamin Harrison, Hoosier Warrior, 1833-1865 (Chicago:
Regnery, 1952); Benjamin Harrison, Hoosier Statesman, From the Civil War to the
White House, 1865-1888 (New York: University Publishers, 1959); Benjamin
Harrison, Hoosier President: The White House and After (Indianapolis:
Bobbs-Merrill, 1968);

Homer E. Socolofsky and Allan B. Spetter, The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison
(Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987).

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HARRISON, BENJAMIN

gale
views 1,944,275 updated Jun 27 2018



HARRISON, BENJAMIN

On March 4, 1889, Benjamin Harrison was sworn in as the twenty-third president
of the United States. Forty-eight years to the day earlier, his grandfather,
william h. harrison,had become the ninth U.S. president. His grandfather's
presidency ended after only one month when he died from complications due to a
pneumonia he developed after delivering his inaugural address in the rain.
Harrison's presidency lasted a full four-year term, ushering in sweeping
legislative changes, signaling a return of the republican party to the White
House, and laying the groundwork for the foreign policy of the late 1800s.

Harrison was born August 20, 1833, in Ohio. After graduating from Miami
University, in Oxford, Ohio, he moved to Indianapolis to practice law. There he
became involved in Republican politics, serving as city attorney, secretary of
the Republican state committee, and supreme court reporter for Indiana. During
the Civil War, he joined the Union Army. Within a month he was promoted to
colonel and commanding officer of the Seventieth Indiana Regiment. He fought
under General William T. Sherman and was promoted to brevet brigadier general in
February 1865. After the war he returned to Indianapolis to pursue his legal
career.

Harrison lost the race for governor of Indiana in 1876, but made a successful
bid for a Senate seat in 1881. He held his Senate position for only one term,
failing to win reelection in 1887. This loss did not deter ardent Republican
supporters who wanted to see Harrison in the White House.

In 1888 Harrison ran against the incumbent Democratic president, grover
cleveland. Harrison was the surprise nominee of the Republican party, a second
choice after James G. Blaine, who declined to run again after having lost to
Cleveland in 1884. Following a very close race, Harrison won 233 electoral
votes; although Cleveland took the popular vote, he won only 168 electoral
votes.

"The bottom principle … of our structure of government is the principle of
control by the majority. Everything else about our government is appendage, it
is ornamentation."
—Benjamin Harrison

In the 1888 election, the Republican party gained control of Congress. During
the first two years of Harrison's presidency, Congress enacted into law almost
everything contained in the 1888 Republican platform. This was one of the most
active Congresses in history. The central themes of Harrison's campaign had been
nationalism and tariff protection. The Democrats favored tariff reduction,
whereas the Republicans stead-fastly favored a system of protection. The tariff
existing at the time Harrison took office produced more income than was needed
to run the government and was the cause of much bipartisan debate. In 1889
Harrison signed the McKinley Tariff Act, which raised customs duties to an
average of 49.5 percent, higher than any previous tariff. The act contained over
four hundred amendments, including provisions for reciprocal trade agreements.
It found favor with few Republicans, causing a rift within the party.

One issue in Harrison's term that enjoyed bipartisan support was antitrust
legislation. During the late 1800s, business combinations known as trusts were
created and began taking over large shares of the market. Both Republicans and
Democrats perceived trusts as destructive of competition, and each party's
platform was antimonopoly in 1888. In 1889 Senator john sherman introduced
antitrust legislation to restrain interstate trusts. On July 2, 1889, Harrison
signed the sherman anti-trust act into law. This was the first major piece of
legislation enacted during his term, and it remains in effect more than one
hundred years after its adoption. Historians view the Sherman Anti-Trust Act as
the most important piece of legislation of the Fifty-first Congress.

During Harrison's term legislation providing for federal supervision of all
congressional elections was defeated several times. The legislation had been
drafted to ensure the voting rights of blacks as mandated by the fifteenth
amendment. Harrison was a strong supporter of the bill and also of legislation
to ensure education for southern blacks, which was also defeated. These were the
last significant attempts to provide these civil rights until the 1930s.

With regard to foreign policy, Harrison had an aggressive attitude and little
patience for drawn-out diplomatic negotiations. He helped convince several
European countries to lift their restrictions on the importation of U.S. pork
products, thus increasing U.S. exports of pork from approximately 47 million
pounds in 1891 to 82 million pounds in 1892. Harrison also played a part in
solving disputes between the United States, England, and Canada regarding seal
hunting in the Bering Sea. And his tenacity proved successful in avoiding a war
with Chile in 1892. Harrison's attitude toward foreign relations was emulated by
theodore roosevelt and other politicians.

When Harrison sought reelection in 1892, Cleveland once again opposed him. This
time Cleveland emerged the victor.

Harrison has been described as an aloof loner, lacking in personal magnetism,
but a man of great intellect. After he failed to secure a second term as
president, he was revered as an elder statesman, giving lectures and acting as
chief counsel for Venezuela in a boundary dispute with British Guiana.

After a bout with pneumonia, Harrison died March 13, 1901, in Indianapolis,
Indiana.


FURTHER READINGS

Lyle, Jack. 1996. "Benjamin Harrison First ISBA President." Res Gestae 39
(January): 19.

Socolofsky, Homer E., and Allan B. Spetter. 1987. The Presidency of Benjamin
Harrison. Lawrence: Univ. Press of Kansas.

West's Encyclopedia of American Law
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HARRISON, BENJAMIN

gale
views 1,731,627 updated Jun 08 2018



HARRISON, BENJAMIN

HARRISON, BENJAMIN. (1726?–1791). Signer. Virginia. Born on the family estate in
Charles City County, Virginia, Benjamin Harrison belonged to a wealthy and
powerful family. He attended the College of William and Mary before taking
charge of the family estate, "Berkeley," upon his father's death. He served in
the House of Burgesses (1749–1775), frequently as speaker. Although strongly in
favor of colonial rights in 1764, he opposed Patrick Henry's 1765 Stamp Act
Resolutions as impolitic. By 1773 he was a member of the Committee of
Correspondence and completely in favor of resisting British authority. He was
appointed to the first Continental Congress, serving until 1777. He was
politically active, signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776, and sat on
the committees concerned with foreign affairs, war and ordnance, and the navy.
Returning to state politics in 1777, he sat in the House of Delegates, 1777–81,
1785–87, serving as its speaker from 1778 to 1781. He was then governor of
Virginia for three years. He opposed the federal Constitution at the state
ratifying convention of 1788, and was elected governor that year as an
antifederalist. He died in office, 24 April 1791. His youngest son, William
Henry, and his great-grandson, Benjamin, were presidents of the United States.

SEE ALSO Henry, Patrick.


BIBLIOGRAPHY

Risjord, Norman K. Chesapeake Politics, 1781–1800. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1978.

                        revised by Michael Bellesiles

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HARRISON, BENJAMIN

oxford
views 2,110,508 updated May 09 2018


Harrison, Benjamin (1833–1901) Twenty-third US president (1889–93). He was a
grandson of William Henry Harrison. After one term in the US Senate, he was
selected (1888) as the Republican presidential nominee against President Grover
Cleveland. He won with a majority of the electoral votes, although Cleveland had
the most popular votes. As president, Harrison signed the Sherman Antitrust Act
and the McKinley Tariff Act. Cleveland defeated him in 1892 elections.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents


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