Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901). I INTRODUCTION Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901), 23rd president of the United States (1889-1893). Harrison was a quiet, industrious political leader and a veteran of the Civil War (1861-1865). A grandson of President William Henry Harrison (1841), he won the presidency through his family name and party loyalty, aided by the support of Civil War veterans. Harrison signed important economic legislation while in office, including the Sherman Antitrust Act, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, and the McKinley Tariff Act. Under his administration part of the Oklahoma Territory was opened to white settlers in 1889, and in 1890, Idaho and Wyoming became states. II EARLY LIFE Harrison was from a wealthy and politically prominent Virginia family. His great-grandfather, for whom he was named, was a signer of the Declaration of Independence (see Harrison, Benjamin (1726?-1791)). His grandfather, William Henry Harrison, became president of the United States in 1841 when Benjamin was seven. Harrison was born in his grandfather's home in North Bend, in southwestern Ohio, on August 20, 1833. He and was raised on his father's farm a few miles away. His parents were Elizabeth Irwin Harrison and John Scott Harrison, who had served two terms in the Congress of the United States. His father struggled to support a large family, but he managed to send Benjamin and his older brother to Farmers' College, near Cincinnati. After two years, Benjamin transferred to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He graduated in 1852. A year later he married a college friend, Caroline Lavinia Scott, daughter of the president of the Oxford Female Institute (later absorbed by Miami University). The couple had a son, Russell, and a daughter, Mary. III EARLY CAREER Harrison was deeply religious. He considered becoming a Presbyterian clergyman (see Presbyterianism) but finally decided to study law, and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1854. In quest of a promising location, Harrison decided on Indianapolis, Indiana as a good place to open a law office. Harrison's grandfather had served as the first governor of Indiana Territory and had fought in the Battle of Tippecanoe there. Harrison formed a law partnership with William Wallace, son of a former Indiana governor, and the firm prospered. Harrison's family name, his mastery of Indiana laws, and his membership in the new Republican Party led to his appointment as assistant city attorney. Harrison worked hard for the Republican Party. In 1856 he campaigned for the Republican presidential candidate, John Charles Frémont, the explorer and former U.S. senator from California. In 1857 Harrison was elected city attorney of Indianapolis. The following year he was chosen secretary of the Republican state central committee. In 1860 he was elected state supreme court reporter, and in the same year he campaigned for Abraham Lincoln for president. A Army Career Harrison sat out the first part of the Civil War, but then was commissioned colonel and commanded the 70th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, which he created in 1862 at the request of Governor Oliver P. Morton. In Kentucky Harrison's raw recruits helped fight an invasion by Confederate General Braxton Bragg. Harrison's unit was later transferred to the army of General William Tecumseh Sherman, and in 1864, Harrison and his men fought in the bloody Atlanta campaign. At the Peach Tree Creek engagement he won praise for gallant conduct. Harrison went home on furlough in 1864 to campaign against pro-Southern Democrats in Indiana. He was reelected supreme court reporter, and later rejoined his regiment in the Carolinas. He left the army with the rank of brigadier general. B Legal Career After the war, Harrison went back to his law practice in Indianapolis and plunged again into Republican politics. He appeared in a number of celebrated law cases. One of them was an aftermath of the important constitutional decision, Ex parte Milligan. During the war, Lambdin Milligan, a civilian member of a pro-Confederate secret society, had been convicted and sentenced to death by a military court for inciting to rebellion. After the war the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Ex parte Milligan that military tribunals could not properly try civilians where civil courts were available. In 1871 Milligan sued the military commission for $100,000 in damages. Harrison was appointed special assistant U.S. attorney by the administration of Ulysses S. Grant to defend the commission. Harrison argued that the military commission had acted in good faith. The jury, aware that the law was on Milligan's side, had no alternative but to declare in his favor; Harrison's victory lay in the damages awarded to Milligan--a mere $5. A few years later Harrison successfully defended a government employee in a trial of members of the Whiskey Ring, a group of liquor distillers who had bribed government employees to avoid the taxes on alcohol. Harrison won by making the government's chief witness look foolish. C Return to Politics In 1872 Harrison attempted to gain the Republican nomination for governor of Indiana. He failed because of opposition from Oliver P. Morton, now a United States senator and the state Republican leader. In 1876 the Republican candidate for governor of Indiana withdrew from the campaign because of Democratic charges of corruption. The Republican state central committee picked Harrison as a replacement to run against the Democratic candidate, James D. Williams, a prosperous farmer whose simple mode of dress won him the nickname "Blue Jeans." Harrison, derisively called "Kid-Glove Harrison" by his opponents, lost the race by 5000 votes, but he received more votes than any other Republican, and upon Senator Morton's death in 1877 he was recognized as the leader of Indiana's Republican Party. D United States Senator In 1879, Harrison was appointed by President Rutherford B. Hayes to the Mississippi River Commission, which oversaw the development of economic activity on the river. He served for two years. At the Republican National Convention in 1880, Harrison was chairman of the Indiana delegation. He discouraged talk of himself as a vice presidential candidate and helped Ohio Congressman James Abram Garfield gain the nomination for president by casting 27 of the state's 30 votes for him. Early in 1881 the Indiana legislature chose Harrison for the U.S. Senate. In the Senate, Harrison was an active and effective debater. He guided through the Senate a bill to provide civil government for Alaska and vainly championed the admission of Dakota as a state. He voted for the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887, which insisted that charges on railroads be "reasonable and just" and established the principle of federal regulation of the economy. He also supported the Mississippi River Commission and fought to defend the rights of Native Americans and homesteaders against pressure from the powerful railroads. He fought vigorously for Civil War veterans, supported high taxes on imports (called tariffs), payments to disabled and opposed the Chinese Exclusion Act, which stopped Chinese immigration to the U.S. for 10 years (see Immigration: From 1840 to 1900). He also introduced 101 special pension and relief bills in six years. Harrison's name was well known by the Republican National Convention in 1884. In spite of this, Congressman and former Secretary of State James G. Blaine was nominated. Harrison campaigned for Blaine, who was defeated in the presidential election by the Democratic governor of New York, Grover Cleveland. Harrison continued to be active in the Senate, leading Republican assaults on President Cleveland. He won national publicity in 1886 with a heartrending speech denouncing the Democrats for discharging a postmistress, the poor widow of a Civil War veteran, in Cannelton, Indiana. The following year, Harrison's Democratic opponent defeated him for Senate reelection by one vote, but Harrison retained his following in the Republican Party. E Election of 1888 In January 1888 the Republican James G. Blaine decided not to run in a second presidential race. Many factors made Harrison a strong presidential contender. In addition to the fact that he was a direct descendant of President William Henry Harrison, his honesty, his Civil War record and his following among veterans made him an attractive candidate. Moreover, he could be depended on to win many votes in populous Ohio, where he had been born, and in Indiana, where he lived, he could be expected to take votes away from the Democratic candidate. As a loyal party worker, Harrison could count on organized Republican support. Furthermore, during his six years as a senator, he had formed important political contacts in Washington, D.C. E1 Presidential Candidate Harrison's friend L.T. Michener, the attorney general of Indiana, led a quiet Harrison-for-president movement. Michener and his co-workers raised money, sent letters to leaders all over the nation, inspired favorable editorials in newspapers, mailed out pro-Harrison pamphlets, and sought public support from influential citizens. Michener and his group successfully negotiated with the political leaders of the big states at the Republican National Convention in 1888. With Blaine steadfastly refusing to be a candidate, Harrison was nominated for president on the eighth ballot over U.S. Senator John Sherman of Ohio and others. Levi Morton, a New York banker, was named the candidate for vice president. The party program called for a high tariff. Few anticipated that Harrison would have great popular appeal as a candidate. Short, stocky, and bearded, with cold and humorless eyes and an aristocratic bearing, he gave an impression of distance. Nevertheless, he gave surprisingly effective speeches from the front porch of his Indianapolis home. E2 Election Campaign The Republicans made a high tariff (taxes on imports) the most important issue in the campaign. Import tariffs raised money for the government and protected U.S. businesses from foreign competition by increasing the cost of importing those goods. Industries in Northern urban areas and banking interests tended to favor high tariffs because they helped domestic businesses; agricultural areas in the West and the South tended to oppose them because they made it harder for people to buy cheap foreign goods such as clothing (see Tariffs, United States). Republicans received from the supporters of high tariffs generous campaign contributions, which were used to publicize the alleged evils of Cleveland's low-tariff stand. A strong appeal was made for the veterans' vote, based on Harrison's war record and his votes in favor of pensions for veterans. Cleveland, on the other hand, had not fought in the Civil War and had consistently vetoed pension bills, claiming they would encourage massive fraud. Furthermore, he had offended many Union veterans by returning captured Confederate battle flags to the South. E3 Murchison Letter At the end of October, as the election neared, Harrison won a number of votes through a hoax known as the Murchison Letter. This was a letter to Lionel SackvilleWest, British ambassador to the United States, signed by Charles F. Murchison, who claimed to be a former British subject and now a naturalized American. The Murchison Letter asked for Sackville-West's views on the coming election, and the ambassador wrote a reply hinting that Britain would gain by Cleveland's reelection. Murchison was in reality a California Republican, named George A. Osgoodby, and the Republicans used the British ambassador's letter to damage Cleveland. President Cleveland at once demanded Sackville-West's recall, but Cleveland lost a good many votes, especially among Irish Americans opposed to a candidate allegedly favorable to Britain. The vigorous Republican campaign, aided by Harrison's historic name, brought victory over Cleveland by 233 electoral votes to 168. However, Harrison found himself a minority president, receiving 100,000 fewer popular votes than Cleveland. IV PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES President Harrison chose a Cabinet of little-known men except for Blaine, whom he appointed secretary of state. Besieged by office seekers, Harrison displeased both reformers of government employment (civil service) and those who favored the old spoils system, under which winning politicians gave government jobs to the loyal party members who had helped them get elected. Although his appointments were excellent, including future U.S. presidents Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909) and William Howard Taft (1909-1913) as civil service commissioner and solicitor general, respectively, many state political bosses, such as Matt Quay of Pennsylvania, Tom Platt of New York, Jim Clarkson of Iowa, were offended and determined to prevent Harrison's renomination in 1892. Throughout his administration, Harrison struggled with party leaders seeking rewards. A Domestic Affairs The Republicans pleased Civil War veterans in 1890 with the passage of the Dependent Pension Act. The act granted pensions to disabled Union veterans even if they weren't injured in the war, and provided allowances of varying amounts to children, dependent parents, and widows of veterans. By 1893 annual appropriations for pensions had increased from $81 million to $135 million. Harrison in 1890 signed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which declared combinations of businesses that restrained trade or commerce to be illegal and authorized the federal government to take action against such combinations, called trusts. In the same year the president also approved the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, hoping to help the silver mining industry (see Bimetallism).The act required the Treasury to purchase 127,575 kg (281,250 lb) of silver each month and to issue in payment Treasury notes redeemable in gold or silver. Issuing currency backed by silver was supposed to cause inflation, so it would help farmers in the West and South by making it easier for them to pay off debt. Before the year's end, Harrison had approved the high import tariff sponsored by U.S. Representative and future U.S. President William McKinley of Ohio. This protectionist act, while it added a number of items to the free import list, increased tariffs on other imports to a record-breaking average of about 48 percent. Harrison himself wrote into the bill the only provision that was at all popular. It empowered the president to stop the import of tax-free items if he thought that the exporting country was not treating U.S. goods the same way. Nevertheless, tariff reformers and Democrats held Harrison responsible for the much criticized McKinley tariff. The congressional elections of 1890 dealt a blow to Harrison's image. A Democratic landslide cost the Republicans control of the U.S. House of Representatives. B Foreign Affairs Harrison strongly supported the program of Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy to build armor-clad ships, and watched for opportunities to acquire far-flung naval bases. Toward this end the president approved the action of the American minister at Honolulu, John L. Stevens, in supporting an American-led revolution against Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii. She had ascended the throne in 1891 after Hawaiian-born white businessmen had forced her brother to accept a new constitution. Stevens supported a revolution in 1893 when Liliuokalani disregarded that constitution because she opposed the growing influence of American-owned industries on the islands (see Hawaii). A treaty negotiated with the revolutionary Hawaiian government provided for annexation of the Hawaiian Islands by the United States. Harrison sent the treaty to the Senate, but his term expired before a vote was taken. To his great regret his successor, President Cleveland, immediately withdrew the treaty, claiming that the behavior of the American minister was dishonorable. Harrison displayed similar vigor in other foreign affairs. He approved Blaine's sponsorship of the Pan-American Congress of Latin American republics (see Pan-American Conferences)in Washington in 1889 and 1890. These conferences were held to discuss common problems. Action was taken toward settlement by arbitration of the Bering Sea controversy, a dispute between the United States and Britain about seal fishing rights. The administration also resolved a dispute with Germany over control of what would become American Samoa. A Chilean crisis, provoked by an attack on American sailors, led Harrison to have Blaine send Chile a letter threatening to terminate diplomatic relations. The Chilean foreign minister apologized, and Chile was forced to pay $75,000. C Election of 1892 The plans of enemies within his party to shelve Harrison in 1892 failed. He was renominated on a high-tariff platform. Whitelaw Reid, publisher of the New York Tribune, was named for vice president. The Democrats nominated former President Cleveland, with Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois for vice president. The Populists, or People's Party, which supported bimetallism and other major political reforms, named James B. Weaver of Iowa for president (see Populism). The chief campaign issue, the tariff, did not provide a thrilling contest. Nor were the candidates of a sort to inspire enthusiastic parades and catchy campaign songs. Only in the West, where the Populists stirred up farmers who suffered from low produce prices, was there any excitement. Because Mrs. Harrison was mortally ill, the president did not campaign. Cleveland, out of sympathy for his opponent, also refused to campaign. Harrison had to cope not only with his personal worries but also with political problems. His policy of tariff protectionism was assailed by the Democrats, although Cleveland's party platform did not clarify the Democratic position. Because of the Homestead Strike, he lost many labor votes. The strike was one of the most violent labor strikes in U.S. history. It was called in 1892 by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers against the Homestead Steel Works in Homestead, Pennsylvania, after the union refused to accept a wage cut and negotiations failed. After about four months, company guards, on orders, shot into the picket lines, beginning a riot. Several were killed and wounded, and the state militia dispersed the strikers. Warnings of the financial panic to come the following year added to Harrison's woes. Spreading strikes seemed to prove that high tariffs alone would not produce prosperity. In November, Harrison was swamped by Cleveland, 277 electoral votes to 145, with 22 going to Weaver. Cleveland received almost 400,000 more votes than Harrison. V LAST YEARS Harrison's wife had died two weeks before the election, so as a widower he returned to his Indianapolis home and his law practice. He wrote a series of articles on the federal government that was revised and published in book form in 1897 with the title This Country of Ours. He also wrote Views of an Ex-President, which was published in 1901, just after his death. During the 1894 state campaign and the 1896 national campaign he spoke for the Republican candidates. In 1899, at Venezuela's invitation, he served as its senior counsel in the tribunal held in Paris to settle the boundary dispute between Venezuela and British Guiana. His summation for Venezuela was so convincing that, before Harrison finished his speech, the British counsel warned his government that it would lose the case. On April 6, 1896, Harrison married Mrs. Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, a niece of his late first wife. They had one daughter, Elizabeth. Harrison died of pneumonia in Indianapolis on March 13, 1901. Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
