Benjamin Harrison: The American Presidents Series: The 23rd President, 1889-1893

One could argue that the United States' presidential term of just four years doesn't allow nearly enough time for any major accomplishments. The busy single term of the "near great," but still nonetheless largely forgotten, James Polk may contradict that claim, but history suggests that the vast majority of single term presidents tend to fade into the background, especially over time. Many Americans probably know very little about nineteenth century names such as Martin Van Buren, Franklin Pierce, Rutherford Hayes or Benjamin Harrison. Not to mention the "accidental" presidents placed in the presidency for less than a single term by historical circumstances: John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Andrew Johnson and Chester Arthur. As the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth, more than a few of these names faded into obscurity. Many people may have heard a sampling of these names, albeit briefly, only from "The Simpsons" musical number "Mediocre Presidents." Though some of these presidents didn't receive additional terms due to uninspiring performances, others arguably fell victim to historical circumstance and the seemingly random gales of political winds. Benjamin Harrison's single term as president, occurring between Grover Cleveland's two terms, probably survives in popular memory largely through trivia: the only president to lose to the president he defeated, the only president with the same predecessor and successor, etc. In fact, the trivia value of Cleveland's two non-consecutive terms seems to have almost completely obscured "the man in the middle" Harrison from history altogether. Similar to other early forgotten presidents, one seems to have to go out of their way to learn anything substantial about Harrison's time in office. The twenty-third volume of "The American Presidents Series" believes that Harrison deserves much better. It argues that he provided the foundation for the modern presidency, changed the nature of the office, fought fervently for black rights and accomplished far more in a mere four years than history recognizes. Yet, as fate will have it, the tides within the country, and even to an extent within his own party, turned against him. Not only that, personal tragedy struck at an extremely crucial moment.Harrison had a more impressive ancestry, and consequently more to live up to, than arguably any other president. His great-grandfather, Benjamin Harrison V, had served in the Continental Congress and signed the Declaration of Independence. His grandfather, the war hero and politician William Henry Harrison, won the 1840 election and became the ninth president of the United States, though he passed away just over a month later. Harrison's father, William Henry's third son, lived at the North Bend, Ohio farm and never accrued any great wealth, though farming allowed the family a modest lifestyle. Born on August 20, 1833, Harrison received a Presbyterian upbringing during the "Second Great Awakening" and claimed to have had a happy childhood with tutors providing education in a farm cabin. In 1847, he attended Farmer's College in Cincinnati, learned about moral responsibility and fell for Caroline Laviria Scott, a minister's daughter. Following an 1850 relocation to Miami, Ohio, where he graduated in 1852, Harrison lost his mother and two younger siblings. Law became his chosen profession and religious morality drove him to do good because "civil society is no less an institution of God than the church." Harrison married Caroline in 1853, "read law" at a Cincinnati law firm, obtained the bar in 1854 and moved his new family to Indianapolis where their first child arrived. He partnered a successful law firm in 1855 and his religious life and the moral horrors of slavery drove him to the new Republican Party. His speech in support of presidential candidate John Frémont met with acclaim, similar to many of the speeches he would later deliver, some extemporaneously. Positions then came rapidly: he won election for City Attorney in 1857, then Secretary for Republican State Central Committee in 1858, then Reporter for the Indiana Supreme Court in 1860. He spoke against slavery, but didn't enlist immediately for Civil War service due to work duties and Caroline's third pregnancy. After a call for Union troops in 1862 he enlisted as a Colonel. A mood of "Christian patriotism" hung over his leadership and he won notable victories in Atlanta and Resaca and supported the Emancipation Proclamation, but "special duty" in 1864 ended his battlefield involvement, not long after receiving the rank of brevet brigadier general from president Lincoln. He told Caroline that he now hoped for a quiet life at home.Law brought him steady income, even through the Panic of 1873, and also a reputation as a formidable lawyer. Harrison blamed the economic problems on the "haste to be rich" through excessive speculation, and he favored the "old, slow way" to wealth. Two attempts at the Governorship in 1872 and 1876 failed and many claimed that party boss Oliver Morton held Harrison back. When Morton died in 1877, Harrison became the favored Republican in Indiana, he even led the Indiana delegation to the 1880 National Republican Convention. Initially supporting James Blaine, he switched to James Garfield and, auspiciously, even received a vote himself on the first ballot. Soon after, he won a Senate seat when his rival withdrew. With his "onerous workload," Senator Harrison defended the tariff, supported veteran's benefits, opposed the mostly pork 1882 Rivers and Harbors bill, supported education, even for blacks, opposed the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act on Constitutional grounds and "acquiesced" in the Supreme Court's disastrous 1883 overturning of the 1875 Civil Rights Act. In 1884, he became a "deadlock candidate" for president, but favorite Blaine received the nomination and lost the presidency to Cleveland. Harrison's criticism of Cleveland's opposition to veteran's pensions drew much attention, but Democrats took over the Indiana congress and voted him out of the Senate in 1887. Some now saw him as a political martyr with presidential potential. His residency in the important swing state of Indiana also made him a very favorable prospect to Republican leaders. When Blaine dropped out of the race in 1888, Harrison won the nomination after the seventh ballot. Receiving the news by telegraph ticker, he apparently almost fainted, but managed to make speeches to crowds that gathered in his yard, which launched his front-porch campaign. Cleveland had made the tariff the main election issue and Harrison tried to link the tariff to black disenfranchisement in the South, an issue he passionately hoped to resolve, but the tariff overshadowed everything. Harrison won the 1888 election 233 to 168 electoral votes, but Cleveland won the popular vote by around 90,000. Republicans also took control of Congress by a narrow margin. Blacks, who overwhelmingly favored the Republican party, were mostly barred from voting in the South.Torrential rain accompanied Harrison's inauguration. His speech defended tariff protectionism, veteran's pensions, a stronger navy and called for the South to not let "the prejudices and paralysis of slavery continue to hang upon the skirts of progress." His vow to fully enforce the Civil Service laws met with stony silence. Political appointments proved costly, not only in time but in resentment. Many supportive Republicans felt shafted by Harrison, but he insisted that he strove for a politically independent presidency. This won him few friends in the long run. His delay in appointing Blaine to Secretary of State also raised tensions. Blaine's health had begun to fail and he would spend considerable time away from his post, causing Harrison to often fill in as Secretary of State. The US took on responsibility for a foreign country for the first time when Britain and Germany took stronger interest in the island nation of Samoa. Averting war, Germany resorted to diplomacy, but the US appointed officials to "keep watch" over the country and it docked warships there to enforce their orders. Samoans resented it. Harrison and Blaine also saw huge business opportunities in Latin America, but a joint conference, which ran from late 1889 to mid 1890, gave Latin American countries the suspicion that the US sought economic expansionism, which the book calls "a warranted charge." The conference rejected free trade in favor of individual negotiations with each country. In 1889, the US saw a $105 million surplus. To help reduce this, William McKinley, the chair of the Ways and Means Committee, led an investigation into the current tariff and presented his recommendations in April 1890. The resulting bill tried to consider all interests, including those of the disgruntled Farmers' Alliance, but it downplayed consumer prices and seemed to favor producers. Nonetheless, it passed the House. Simultaneously, a bill to address black disenfranchisement in the South, an issue that Harrison desperately wanted to address, appeared and proposed appointing judges who would ultimately decide election outcomes. Democrats opposed it a "force bill," but it passed the House in July 1890.The Sherman Anti-Trust Act became law in July 1890, Harrison hoped the bill would include more, but he found it "prohibitory" and "penal" enough to sign it. Many criticized its lack of teeth and slow prosecutions. It wouldn't reach its full potential until the twentieth century. The Sherman Silver Purchase Act brought the contentious issue of free silver into the administration. "Silverites," who pushed for free silver coinage not tied to gold, existed in both parties. Harrison wanted to maintain the gold standard and would not compromise on the issue. The bill, which did not fully placate the "silverites," also became law in July of 1890. Meanwhile, the Harrison-Aldrich amendment to the tariff bill expanded executive powers by allowing the president to reimpose duties against foreign countries that imposed their own heavy duties. Sadly, the election bill concerning black enfranchisement then became a bargaining chip, with legislators claiming they would vote for the tariff bill only if the majority agreed to delay the election bill. These tactics worked and the McKinley Tariff Act passed the Senate and became law, but Senate Republicans agreed to table the elections bill until the next session of congress. On this compromise, Frederick Douglass asked "what if we gain the tariff and many other good things if in doing it the soul of the party and the nation is lost?" Apart from all that, the Dependent Pension Act, the Meat Inspection Act, the Forest Reserve Act and funding for six new navy ships passed congress. The session still qualifies as one of the busiest in Congressional history, having passed 531 laws. As an activist president, Harrison had played a large role in this accomplishment. But Democrats publicly denounced "the billion dollar congress" and voters listened. The mid-term elections gave Democrats a large majority in the House. This doomed the elections bill, as "silverite" Republicans decided to work with Democrats on free silver rather than fight for the elections bill. Then Wounded Knee happened. It shocked Harrison, but he made no policy changes and stuck to his ideal that "civilizing" Native Americans, essentially turning them into self-sufficient farmers, remained the best course for the nation.In 1891, Harrison became the first president to speak out against the lynching of blacks. He called them a "shame on our Christian civilization." Frederick Douglass, referring to Harrison, said "we never had a greater president" and that his elections effort "should endear him to the colored people as long as he lives." Now facing a Democratic controlled congress, Harrison turned to foreign policy matters in the second half of his term. The reciprocity agreements made under the McKinley tariff with nine Latin American countries and Brazil would end in 1894 when Democrats terminated them. A canal project with Nicaragua failed, as did a heavy-handed attempt to establish coaling stations in Haiti. Harrison refused to partner with Portugal to establish bases in its African colonies and flexed the nation's growing muscles with Italy over mob violence in New Orleans, with Chile on the "Valparaiso incident" and with Great Britain over seal hunting in the Bering Sea. Harrison thought the US now deserved treatment as "a first class power." As the 1892 elections approached, the party split between Harrison and Blaine, mostly over Harrison's past patronage appointments. Then tension became tangible when Blaine resigned as Secretary of State. Blaine remained in poor health, so some suggested McKinley as an alternative, but Harrison won re-nomination on the first ballot at the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, but only by 60%. The party apparently remained divided. When cholera broke out in New York, Harrison suspended immigration from infected countries and, though this likely averted an epidemic, it also led to resentment among immigrant voters. As the campaign began, labor riots broke out, including the notorious Homestead riots. These undermined tariff protectionism and labor did not support Harrison's new Vice President, Whitelaw Reid. In addition, the Farmer's Alliance became the Populist Party and campaigned for free silver. Then tragedy struck when Harrison's wife Caroline died of tuberculosis on October 25th. A devastated Harrison canceled all campaign appearances. For a litany of potential reasons, he lost to Cleveland 277 to 145 electoral votes, with the Populists acquiring 22. Cleveland also won the popular vote by around 363,000 and Democrats retained control of congress. Many blamed Republican apathy, too much government activism, Harrison's campaign absence, immigrant backlash or a combination of all of these for Harrison's defeat. He wrote "I have never enjoyed public life."Before Harrison left the White House, an uprising led by American interests broke out in Hawaii that overthrew Queen Lili'uokalani. Ignoring the Queen's protests and not supporting her restoration over "business interests," Harrison hastily drew up a treaty of annexation in February 1893, but the Senate agreed to take no action until he left office. He returned to Indianapolis and his law practice following Cleveland's second inaugural. Cleveland withdrew the Hawaii treaty only five days later. Despite everything, Harrison remained a staunch Republican, making speeches for McKinley and others, but he refused any hints at re-nomination. In 1896 he married longtime friend and controversial family rival Mame Dimmick, which caused a lot of drama and resentment within the family. New children and high-profile legal cases kept him very busy, especially the case involving Guiana border disputes between Venezuela and Great Britain. He accepted the Spanish-American war, but also saw a "canker of greed" in the new generation and generally opposed the country's new imperialist enthusiasm. Overall, he hoped for a "moral regeneration" in politics and criticized the power of commerce over liberty. In 1901, a case of "the grippe" turned into pneumonia and Harrison died on March 13. McKinley issued a proclamation of mourning and heavily praised Harrison's presidency. The book argues that McKinley borrowed many tactics from Harrison and that Harrison, not McKinley, should receive recognition as the nation's first "modern president." It also cites Harrison's refusal to tow the party line with patronage appointments, and instead seek an independent administration, as a distinguishing mark of political integrity. Though the book praises Harrison highly, and sometimes with effervescent language, he tends to rank among historians in the mid to bottom range, alongside presidents such as Van Buren, Zachary Taylor, Hayes, Arthur and Calvin Coolidge. Though his moral convictions did appear sound, some might find exceptions in his attitudes toward Native Americans, Latin America and Hawaii, he also didn't achieve many of his highest ideals, in particular the elections bill. His steadfastness, though largely admirable, also ended up alienating factions within his own party, which arguably contributed to huge election losses, though many other factors beyond his control also doubtlessly contributed. Overall, Harrison seems to belong to neither the worst nor the best of the presidents, a fate that many obscure one-term presidents share. The twenty-third volume of "The American Presidents Series" nonetheless displays Harrison's best qualities, some of which, especially his defense of black voting rights, don't deserve the neglect that history has dealt them.

I just wanted to say, I appreciated the book that I received from Craig McCann on the life of Benjamin Harrison. The package came on time and was well packaged. I have enjoyed starting to read the book and find out more about this interesting American President that few of us know about. In the future, I want to stop off in Indianapolis to visit his Presidential site and tomb. In the future, I would certainly consider purchasing a book from Craig McCann.

Benjamin Harrison's one term in office presents a singular fact of presidential minutiae: he is the only president to defeat an incumbent (Grover Cleveland in 1888) only to turn around and be ousted by the same man in the next election. What were the circumstances that led to this volte-face? Charles Calhoun does an excellent job in this biography helping us to understand the dynamics that led to Harrison's reversal of fortunes.Harrison's election in 1888 had actually been a new model of campaigning, with record amounts of money being raised, primarily from industry, and one of the first and most massive media blitzes launched to stoke interest nationwide in his candidacy. He was also one of the first presidents to launch a so-called front porch campaign from his mansion in Indianapolis. Reporters, well wishers and the American people would have to come to him instead of he to them. Given the uncharismatic nature of Harrison's personality, it was probably a wise choice.In the first two years of his presidency, Harrison presided over a very active legislative agenda, skillfully negotiating through Congress passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act, The McKinley Tariff Act, and The Sherman Silver Purchase Act, all hot button issues of his day. These ambitious pieces of legislation were in a manner a harbinger of Teddy Roosevelt's activist domestic agenda to come. But Harrison never seemed to be able to get much off the ground in the last two years of his presidency after he lost his Republican majority in the House.It may seem ironic by today's standards that it was the Democrats who were rallying against an activist agenda. In the first half of Harrison's administration, the Republican Congress was the first to present a $1 billion-dollar federal budget, earning it the moniker The Billion Dollar Congress.Harrison's downfall came in part at the hands of his own party. He was somewhat of a cold fish, at least in political circles, and seemed frequently overshadowed by bigger than life personalities that surrounded him, most notably, his own charismatic Secretary of State James Blaine. Calhoun provides good insight into this complicated relationship.Calhoun also does an admirable job detailing the legislative battles surrounding the issue of the gold standard and whether America should embrace a bi-metallism standard with silver. Deflationary pressure on the economy had dropped prices to the point where the agricultural and industrial sectors were both suffering from increasing layoffs and labor unrest. Many Republicans in the West with entrepreneurial interests in silver mining had much to gain by moving to a bi-metal standard, making them strange bedfellows with Democrats who advocated for an inflationary policy to raise prices and ultimately wages.On civil rights, Harrison was well intended, although he did not accomplish much. He supported legislation that would have granted federal funding to schools regardless of the race of its students. He also endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court ruling in the Civil Rights Cases that in 1883 had struck down much of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 as unconstitutional. The time had not come for such progressive measures to meet with congressional approval.Grover Cleveland usually shoulders the blame for the Depression of 1893, and deservedly so. But the policies of Benjamin Harrison help set the stage for this economic disaster, much as the policies of Calvin Coolidge in the next century foreboded the disastrous administration of Herbert Hoover. Harrison ultimately succumbed to supporting inflationary policies that came back to haunt the country in 1893. Cleveland only exacerbated the problem by choking the money supply and cutting off the new silver standard at an inopportune time. The result was one of the worst depressions in American history. Just prior to that point, the gilded age had come into full swing as income inequality hit levels never previously seen in America. Now, its policies were coming home to roost.Harrison had been an ardent supporter of protectionist tariffs. The American people have been told that such tariffs would benefit labor. But when the steel industry, in particular, was hit with layoffs and depressed wages, labor began to understand that there was not necessarily a correlation between protectionism in trade and protecting jobs.Harrison's administration was not defined by foreign affairs. He was fortunate enough to preside over a time of relative peace with respect to American interests abroad. He did flex his muscles by invoking the Monroe Doctrine, as many of his predecessors had, to keep European powers from expanding interests into South and Central America. But perhaps his most significant step was thwarting German expansion in the tiny South Pacific island of Samoa, believing that it was important for the United States to have a toehold in that region. To stand his ground, Harrison had pledged American support and responsibility for a government beyond its own borders. This policy marked a small step for foreign policy that would accelerate dramatically in subsequent administrations.By the time the election of 1892 was around the corner, Harrison simply had little fire left in his belly for the fight. Not only did he have only tepid support from his own party to run again, but his wife became gravely ill and died right before the election, basically removing Harrison from the campaign trail at a critical time.All in all, Harrison is probably most remembered for allowing the economy to begin a downward spiral on his watch. But in all fairness, he should probably also be remembered for taking steps to allow the United States to take its place in the world as an industrial power, a county of entrepreneurs and inventors. He was a decent man, but his integrity was not a prominent enough quality to overcome his other flaws and missteps. Calhoun does an excellent job summing up the man and his presidency.