Benjamin Harrison Click to enlarge

• Born: 20 August 1833
• Birthplace: North Bend, Ohio
• Died: 13 March 1901
• Best Known As: President of the United States 1889-1893

Benjamin Harrison was a Civil War general and a Republican senator from Indiana before defeating incumbent Grover Cleveland in the 1888 presidential election. His presidency was undistinguished, but his family tree was not: Harrison's great-grandfather was a signer of the Declaration of Independence; his grandfather was William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States; and his father was a congressman from Ohio. In a try for a second term, Harrison was defeated by Grover Cleveland in a rematch of their 1888 race.

Harrison's first wife, Caroline, died less than a month before Harrison lost his reelection bid... He was the 23rd president.

Harrison, Benjamin (1833-1901)23rd president of the United States (1889-93), born in North Bend, Ohio. During the Civil War he fought in the campaign to capture Atlanta (1864), leading the forces that beat back the Confederate troops at Peach Tree Creek. After the war he settled in Indiana, where he resumed his law practice and political career. In 1881 the state legislature sent him to the U.S. Senate, and in 1888 he received the Republican nomination for president, campaigning on a platform that defended the protective tariff. His achievements were in the realm of foreign policy, where he advocated construction of a modern navy, control of a Central American canal, and acquisition of naval bases in the Caribbean and the Pacific. During his administration Congress approved construction of the first three American coastal battleships and the first seagoing battleship. Midway through his term the party lost control of the House to the Democrats, who then swept to victory in 1892. Following his defeat, Harrison returned to the practice of law in Indiana.

Harrison was the grandson of President William Henry Harrison and the great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison, a prominent Virginian who had signed the Declaration of Independence.

See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.

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.

For more information on Benjamin Harrison, visit Britannica.com.

• Born: Aug. 20, 1833, North Bend, Ohio
• Political party: Republican
• Education: Miami University (Ohio), B.A., 1852
• Military service: 70th Regiment of Indiana Volunteers, 1861–65
• Previous government service: crier of the federal court, 1854; Indiana Supreme Court reporter, 1860–62; member, Mississippi River Commission, 1879; U.S. Senate, 1881–87
• Elected President, 1888; served, 1889–93
• Subsequent government service: chief counsel for Venezuela in arbitration of boundary dispute with British Guyana, 1898–99
• Died: Mar. 13, 1901, Indianapolis, Ind.

Benjamin Harrison was one of the few Presidents to be elected despite winning fewer popular votes than his opponent. He was an effective leader in international affairs, and his administration concluded commercial treaties with many nations and improved relations with Latin America. But the economy deteriorated during his Presidency, inflation and joblessness increased, and labor unrest made him a one-term President.

Harrison was descended from a family of Ohio politicians that included his greatgrandfather, Virginia governor Benjamin Harrison (a signer of the Declaration of Independence); his grandfather, President William Henry Harrison; and his father, Whig congressman John Scott Harrison. A lawyer by vocation, Benjamin Harrison became a member of the newly formed Republican party in the 1850s and held various state party positions. During the Civil War his regiment saw fierce fighting in Georgia, and Harrison led his men several times in successful charges against enemy positions. After the war he resumed the practice of law. He tried but failed to win the nomination for Indiana governor in 1872, then lost a close election for governor in 1876.

In 1880 Harrison chaired the Indiana delegation to the Republican national convention. His switch to Garfield decided the nomination. He declined a cabinet position in order to serve in the U.S. Senate for one term but was defeated for reelection. At the Republican convention of 1888, the delegates could not decide between Ohio's John Sherman and Indiana's Walter Gresham. Harrison was the compromise choice. Although he received 100,000 fewer popular votes than President Grover Cleveland, Harrison defeated Cleveland in the electoral college.

Harrison opened Oklahoma to settlement in 1889 under the Homestead Act, and in a single day 20,000 settlers claimed all the acreage available. During his term six states (Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, and South Dakota) entered the Union, completing the westward expansion of the nation.

Harrison almost secured the annexation of Hawaii as well. American settlers and plantation owners overthrew the government of Queen Liliuokalani, established a new regime, and were recognized by U.S. minister John L. Stevens, who sent 150 marines to protect the new government. Harrison denied any interference in the internal affairs of the islands, but the Senate delayed until 1898 action on a treaty of annexation offered by the revolutionary government.

The most powerful man in the Harrison administration was Secretary of State James G. (“Jingo”) Blaine, and its most notable accomplishments were in foreign affairs. The first Pan American Conference, a meeting of the nations of the Western Hemisphere, was held in 1889, leading to the formation of the Pan American Union. A dispute over trading privileges in Samoa resulted in an international conference and creation of a three-power protectorate (British, German, and American) so each could receive the same trading rights in the islands.

An October 16, 1891, riot in Valparaso, Chile, involving sailors from the U.S.S. Baltimore, left 2 American sailors dead, 17 injured, and many others imprisoned. In a special message to Congress on January 25, 1892, Harrison warned of war. Blaine had sent an ultimatum to Chile on January 21 requiring an apology. Chile did so and paid a $75,000 reparation, even as Harrison's message was sent off, ending the crisis.

During Harrison's administration Congress was dominated by “Czar” Thomas Reed, the Speaker of the House, and several Republican senators. They included John Sherman, who in 1890 got Congress to pass the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. It was supposed to allow the government to bring lawsuits against organizers of business enterprises that acted to restrain competition, but it was not vigorously enforced. The concentration of trusts proceeded with no interference from Harrison's Justice Department. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act (1890) was designed to help the silver industry and to secure votes in the West and among farmers favoring cheap money by having the government buy silver and then increase the amount of coins in circulation. Pensions for Civil War veterans increased by 50 percent under the Pension Act of 1890, but the McKinley Tariff increased the rates on most imports of industrial goods and was so unpopular with farmers and consumers in the 1890 election that Congress went over to Democratic control. Two years later, with the country reeling from labor unrest, Harrison was defeated for reelection by Grover Cleveland.

Harrison returned to his law practice in Indiana and wrote two books, This Country of Ours and Views of an Ex-President. He served as counsel to Venezuela from 1898 to 1899 in its negotiation of a boundary dispute with Great Britain. He was a strong critic of U.S. colonial policies after the Spanish-American War.

See also Cleveland, Grover

Sources

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

(1833-1901), twenty-third president of the United States. After graduating from Miami University in Ohio, his birthplace, this grandson of President William Henry Harrison became a lawyer in Indianapolis. A staunch Republican, he fought for the Union and emerged from the Civil War a brigadier general. Despite an iceberglike personality and the loss of the gubernatorial campaign of 1876, he became Indiana's leading Republican. Although undistinguished during a term in the U.S. Senate, Harrison, as an inoffensive war hero from a crucial state, won the Republican nomination in 1888 with the help of James G. Blaine's endorsement. Because his supporters were strategically located, Harrison was elected by a majority in the electoral college even though the incumbent, Grover Cleveland, received more popular votes.

Harrison influenced legislation and was an efficient executive, but his lackluster personality made his administration seem colorless. In conjunction with the Republican-controlled "Billion Dollar Congress" of 1890, his administration was remarkably productive. To wipe out the $100 million surplus of revenues over expenditures, Congress passed a generous Dependent and Disability Pension Act and the protectionist McKinley Tariff, which raised rates higher than ever before. Responding to pressure from the West, Congress approved the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required that the government buy 4.5 million ounces of silver each month and pay for it with Treasury certificates. Harrison managed the inflationist tendency of this legislation by redeeming the certificates in gold. At his request and to make good a plank in the Republican party's 1888 platform, Congress also passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which was by far the most influential law passed during his administration.

With the State Department in the hands of Blaine, the administration pursued a vigorous foreign policy. Harrison favored a naval buildup, the acquisition of bases in the Caribbean and the Pacific (he secured a protectorate in Samoa), and an isthmian canal. He supported the first modern Pan-American Conference (1889), which was designed to expand American political and economic influence in Latin America at the expense of Great Britain. He also fought for the novel reciprocity feature in the McKinley Tariff, and his administration negotiated eight treaties that mutually reduced tariff rates. Harrison's greatest disappointment in foreign affairs was his failure to convince the Senate to annex Hawaii.

Despite a falling-out with Blaine and other party leaders, Harrison was renominated for the presidency in 1892, but this time he lost decisively to Cleveland. The dissatisfaction of New York Republicans, the anger of civil service reformers over his appointment policies, the alienation of western farmers favoring inflation and opposing protection, and labor unrest were responsible for his defeat. He was able, but his accomplishments and his personality offended more supporters than they attracted. In retirement, Harrison lectured and served as chief counsel for Venezuela in its boundary dispute with Great Britain.

Bibliography:

Harry Joseph Sievers, Benjamin Harrison, Hoosier Warrior, 1833-1865 (1952), Benjamin Harrison, Hoosier Statesman: From the Civil War to the White House, 1865-1888 (1959), and Benjamin Harrison, Hoosier President: The White House and After (1968); Homer E. Socolofsky and Allan B. Spetter, The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison (1987).

Author:

Ari Hoogenboom

See also Blaine, James G.; Elections: 1888 , 1892. For events during Harrison's administration, see Antitrust Movement; People's Party; Tariff.

1833–1901, 23d President of the United States (1889–93), b. North Bend, Ohio, grad. Miami Univ. (Ohio), 1852; grandson of William Henry Harrison. After reading law in Cincinnati, he moved (1854) to Indianapolis, where he was a lawyer and politician. He served in the Civil War as commander of an Indiana volunteer regiment and in 1865 was brevetted brigadier general of volunteers. A well-established corporation lawyer, he was (1881–87) a member of the U.S. Senate as a Republican but was defeated for reelection. The Republicans chose him (1888) as presidential candidate against Grover Cleveland, and he was elected in the electoral college, though Cleveland had the larger popular vote. Harrison as President approved all regular Republican measures, including the highly protective McKinley Tariff Act. His equivocal stand on civil service reform displeased both reformers and spoilsmen. The first Pan-American Conference was held (1889) in his administration. Defeated for reelection in 1892 by Cleveland, Harrison returned to his Indianapolis law practice. He later represented Venezuela in the Venezuela Boundary Dispute. Harrison wrote This Country of Ours (1897) and Views of an Ex-President (1901).

Bibliography

See his public papers and addresses (1893, repr. 1969); biography by H. J. Sievers (3 vol., 1952–68).

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.

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 steadfastly 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.

Quotes:

"We have no commission from God to police the world."