Everything about Benjamin Harrison totally explained
Benjamin Harrison (
August 20 1833 –
March 13 1901) was the twenty-third
President of the United States, serving one term from 1889 to 1893. He had previously served as a senator from
Indiana. His administration is best known for a series of legislation including the
McKinley Tariff and federal spending that reached one billion dollars.
Democrats attacked the "Billion Dollar Congress" and defeated the
Republican Party in the
1890 mid-term elections, as well as defeating Harrison's bid for reelection in 1892. He is to date the only president from
Indiana.
Early life and Civil War
A grandson of President
William Henry Harrison and great-grandson of
Benjamin Harrison, V, Benjamin was born on
August 20 1833, in
North Bend,
Hamilton County, Ohio, as the second of eight children of
John Scott Harrison (later a U.S.
Congressman from
Ohio) and Elizabeth Ramsey Irwin. In his early childhood days he was rarely seen without his older brother Matthew Harrison. He attended
Miami University,
Oxford, Ohio, where he was a member of the fraternity
Phi Delta Theta and graduated in 1852. He studied law in
Cincinnati, Ohio, then moved to
Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1854. He was admitted to the bar and became reporter of the decisions of the
Indiana Supreme Court. He was made an honorary member of
Delta Chi (which at the time was a legal professional fraternity) at Michigan.
While in
Indianapolis, Benjamin Harrison was both the first President of the
University Club, a private
gentlemen's club and the first President of the
Phi Delta Theta Alumni Club of Indianapolis, the fraternity's first such club. Both clubs are still in existence as of 2008.
On
October 20 1853, Harrison, 20, married
Caroline Lavinia Scott, 21, in
Oxford, Ohio. The wedding was performed by her father, Rev. John W. Scott. The Harrisons had two children, Russell Benjamin Harrison (
August 12 1854 -
December 13 1936) and Mary "Mamie" Scott Harrison McKee (
April 3 1858 -
October 28 1930). On
June 13 1861, they suffered the tragedy of a
miscarriage.
Benjamin Harrison was the only president's grandson to become president.
Harrison served in the
Union Army during the
Civil War and was appointed Colonel of the 70th Indiana Volunteer Infantry Regiment in August 1862. The unit performed reconnaissance duty and guarded railroads in
Kentucky and
Tennessee until
Sherman's Atlanta Campaign in 1864. Harrison was
brevetted as a
brigadier general, and commanded a
Brigade at
Resaca,
Cassville,
New Hope Church, Lost Mountain,
Kennesaw Mountain,
Marietta,
Peachtree Creek and
Atlanta. Harrison was later transferred to the
Army of the Cumberland and participated in the
Siege of Nashville and the
Grand Review in Washington D.C. before mustering out in 1865.
Politics
While in the field in October 1864, he was elected reporter of the
Indiana State Supreme Court and served four years. He was an unsuccessful
Republican candidate for
Governor of Indiana in 1876, being defeated by
James D. Williams. He was appointed a member of the
Mississippi River Commission, in 1879, and elected as a Republican to the
United States Senate, where he served from
March 4,
1881, to
March 4,
1887. He was chairman of the
U.S. Senate Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard (
47th Congress) and
U.S. Senate Committee on Territories (
48th and
49th Congresses).
Presidency 1889-1893
Policies
John Sherman for the Republican presidential nomination, Harrison was elected President of the United States in 1888 in
notoriously fraudulent balloting in New York and Indiana. In the
Presidential election, Harrison received nearly 100,000 fewer popular votes than incumbent President
Grover Cleveland but carried the
Electoral College 233 to 168. Although he'd made no political bargains, his supporters had given innumerable pledges upon his behalf. When Boss
Matthew Quay of
Pennsylvania heard that Harrison ascribed his narrow victory to Providence, Quay exclaimed that Harrison would never know "how close a number of men were compelled to approach...the penitentiary to make him President." He was inaugurated on
March 4 1889, and served through
March 4 1893. Harrison was also known as the "centennial president" because his inauguration was the
100th anniversary of the inauguration of
George Washington.
For Harrison,
Civil Service reform was a no-win situation. Congress was split so far apart on the issue that agreeing to any measure for one side would alienate the other. The issue became a popular
political football of the time and was immortalized in a cartoon captioned "What can I do when both parties insist on kicking?"
"What can I do when both parties insist on kicking?"]]
Harrison was proud of the vigorous foreign policy which he helped shape. The first
Pan-American Congress met in
Washington, D.C. in 1889, establishing an information center which later became the
Pan American Union. At the end of his administration, Harrison submitted to the Senate a treaty to annex
Hawaii; to his disappointment, President Cleveland later withdrew it.
The most perplexing domestic problem Harrison faced was the
tariff issue. The high tariff rates in effect had created a surplus of money in the Treasury. Low-tariff advocates argued that the surplus was hurting business. Republican leaders in Congress successfully met the challenge. Representative
William McKinley and Senator
Nelson W. Aldrich framed a still higher tariff bill; some rates were intentionally prohibitive.
Harrison tried to make the tariff more acceptable by writing in reciprocity provisions. To cope with the Treasury surplus, the tariff was removed from imported raw
sugar; sugar growers within the United States were given two cents per pound bounty on their production.
In an attempt to battle trusts and monopolies, Harrison signed into effect the
Sherman Antitrust Act in order to protect trade and commerce. This was the first Federal act of its kind.
Long before the end of the Harrison Administration, the Treasury surplus had evaporated and prosperity seemed about to disappear. Congressional elections in 1890 went against the Republicans, and party leaders decided to abandon President Harrison, although he'd cooperated with Congress on party legislation. Nevertheless, his party renominated him in 1892, but he was defeated by Cleveland. Just two weeks earlier, on
October 25,
1892, Harrison's wife, Caroline died after a long battle with
tuberculosis. Their daughter,
Mary Harrison McKee, continued the duties of the
First Lady.
Significant events
Administration and Cabinet
Supreme Court appointments
Harrison appointed the following Justices to the
Supreme Court of the United States:
David Josiah Brewer - 1890
Henry Billings Brown - 1891
George Shiras, Jr. - 1892
Howell Edmunds Jackson - 1893
States admitted to the Union
North Dakota – November 2 1889
South Dakota – November 2 1889
Montana – November 8 1889
Washington – November 11 1889
Idaho – July 3 1890
Wyoming – July 10 1890
Harrison admitted the most states since George Washington.
Harrison also made a push to have Hawaii annexed by the United States, but the annexation wasn't completed until after Harrison's time in office.
Post-presidency
After he left office, Harrison returned to Indianapolis. He married a widow, Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, on April 6, 1896, in New York City. She was also his deceased wife's niece. His two adult children, Russell, 41 years old at the time, and Mary "Mamie", 38, didn't attend the wedding because they disagreed with their father's marriage, which they viewed as inappropriate. Their mother had died only three and a half years earlier. Benjamin and Mary had one child, Elizabeth (February 21, 1897 - December 26, 1955), who later married James Blaine Walker, a grandnephew of James G. Blaine. Their daughter, Jane Harrison Walker, later married Newell Garfield, the great-grandson of President James A. Garfield and his wife Lucretia Garfield and the grandson of James R. Garfield. Harrison went to the First Peace Conference at The Hague. He served as an attorney for the Republic of Venezuela in the boundary dispute between Venezuela and the United Kingdom in 1900. He also wrote a book entitled This Country of Ours about the federal government and the presidency.
Harrison developed the flu and a bad cold in February 1901. Despite treatment by steam vapor inhalation, Harrison's condition only worsened. Benjamin Harrison eventually died from influenza and pneumonia on Wednesday, March 13, 1901 and is interred in Crown Hill Cemetery. Incidentally, Crown Hill Cemetery also holds the remains of three United States Vice-Presidents: Charles W. Fairbanks, Thomas A. Hendricks, and Thomas R. Marshall.
Legacy
The Benjamin Harrison Law School in Indianapolis was named in his honor. In 1944, Indiana University acquired the school and renamed it Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis.
At Miami University, Harrison Hall houses the political science department and the Harrison Scholarship is school's most prestigious academic award. (External Link
)
In 1942, a United States Liberty ship named the SS Benjamin Harrison was launched. She was torpedoed and scuttled in 1943.
A U.S. Army post, Fort Benjamin Harrison, was established after Harrison's death in Indianapolis, but it was closed in the 1990s.
Harrison Hall, a co-educational dormitory at Purdue University, is named after President Harrison, who served on the Board of Trustees of Purdue University from July, 1895 to March, 1901.
The Benjamin Harrison Memorial Drawbridge over the James River in Virginia is one of the longest vertical lift bridges in the North America at 363 feet at its longest span.
Trivia
Benjamin Harrison is the earlierst President whose voice is known to be preserved. This recording was originally made on a phonograph cylinder in 1889 and can be accessed below in the Media section. Rutherford B. Hayes recorded for Edison earlier but the tinfoil recording is presumed lost.
Nicknames such as "Kid Gloves", "The Human Iceberg" and "Little Ben" were mocking titles given by his political rivals. "Little Ben" was also a name so-called by his Civil War regiment, the 70th Indiana Volunteers.
The 1968 Walt Disney musical film The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band was about the United States presidential election of 1888 between Harrison and rival Grover Cleveland. In the film, the campaign song "Oh, Benjamin Harrison" was modern and not really from that campaign. The song was written by the Sherman Brothers.
Harrison had electricity installed in the White House for the first time by Edison Electric Company, but he and his wife reportedly wouldn't touch the light switches for fear of electrocution and would often go to sleep with the lights on.
In April 1891, Harrison became the first President to travel across the United States entirely by train.
On June 7 1892, Harrison became the first President to ever attend a baseball game.
Harrison's roommate at Miami University, John Alexander Anderson, became a six-term U.S. Congressman from Kansas and the second President of Kansas State University. Harrison appointed him consul general in Cairo, Egypt.
In 1892, Harrison and Whitelaw Reid formed the only U.S. presidential ticket composed of candidates that were also alumni of the same university, Miami University. Like Harrison, Reid also had a building on Miami's campus named for him. Reid Hall was a dormitory until it was demolished in 2006 to make room for the new Richard T. Farmer School of Business.
On January 28 2007 Mrs. Emma Tillman died being the last U.S. citizen alive born during the Harrison administration.
Media
Further Information
Get more info on 'Benjamin Harrison'.
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