Benjamin Harrison
Benjamin Harrison (August 20, 1833 – March 13, 1901) was an American politician who served as the 23rd president of the United States from 1889 to 1893. He was a member of the Harrison family of Virginia—a grandson of the ninth president, William Henry Harrison, and a great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, a Founding Father.
This article is about the president of the United States. For other people with the same name, see Benjamin Harrison (disambiguation).
Benjamin Harrison
Grover Cleveland
August 20, 1833
North Bend, Ohio, U.S.
March 13, 1901 (aged 67)
Indianapolis, Indiana, U.S.
- Whig (before 1856)
- Republican (1856–1901)
- John Scott Harrison (father)
- Politician
- lawyer
U.S. Army (Union Army)
1862–1865
- Colonel, USV
- Brevet Brig. Gen., USV
- 70th Ind. Infantry Reg.
- 1st Brigade, 1st Division, XX Corps
Harrison was born on a farm by the Ohio River and graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. After moving to Indianapolis, he established himself as a prominent local attorney, Presbyterian church leader, and politician in Indiana. During the American Civil War, he served in the Union Army as a colonel, and was confirmed by the U.S. Senate as a brevet brigadier general of volunteers in 1865. Harrison unsuccessfully ran for governor of Indiana in 1876. The Indiana General Assembly elected Harrison to a six-year term in the Senate, where he served from 1881 to 1887.
A Republican, Harrison was elected to the presidency in 1888, defeating the Democratic incumbent Grover Cleveland in the Electoral College despite losing the popular vote. Hallmarks of Harrison's administration were unprecedented economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff, which imposed historic protective trade rates, and the Sherman Antitrust Act. Harrison also facilitated the creation of the national forest reserves through an amendment to the Land Revision Act of 1891. During his administration six western states were admitted to the Union. In addition, Harrison substantially strengthened and modernized the U.S. Navy and conducted an active foreign policy, but his proposals to secure federal education funding as well as voting rights enforcement for African Americans were unsuccessful.
Due in large part to surplus revenues from the tariffs, federal spending reached one billion dollars for the first time during his term. The spending issue in part led to the defeat of the Republicans in the 1890 midterm elections. Cleveland defeated Harrison for reelection in 1892, due to the growing unpopularity of high tariffs and high federal spending. He returned to private life and his law practice in Indianapolis. In 1899 he represented Venezuela in its British Guiana boundary dispute with Great Britain. Harrison traveled to the court in Paris as part of the case and after a brief stay returned to Indianapolis. He died at his home in Indianapolis in 1901 of complications from influenza. Many have praised Harrison's commitment to African Americans' voting rights, and his work ethic and integrity, but scholars and historians generally rank him as an average president, due to the uneventful nature of his term.[1]
Post-war career
Indiana politics
While serving in the Union Army in October 1864, Harrison was once again elected reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court, although he did not seek the position, and served as the Court's reporter for four more years. The position was not a politically powerful one, but it provided Harrison with a steady income for his work preparing and publishing court opinions, which he sold to the legal profession.[55][56] Harrison also resumed his law practice in Indianapolis. He became a skilled orator and known as "one of the state's leading lawyers".[25]
In 1869 President Ulysses S. Grant appointed Harrison to represent the federal government in a civil suit filed by Lambdin P. Milligan, whose controversial wartime conviction for treason in 1864 led to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case Ex parte Milligan.[57][58] The civil case was referred to the U.S. Circuit Court for Indiana at Indianapolis, where it evolved into Milligan v. Hovey.[59] Although the jury found in Milligan's favor and he had sought hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages, state and federal statutes limited the amount the federal government had to award to Milligan to five dollars plus court costs.[59][60][61]