Benjamin Harrison (1833 - 1901) was an American lawyer, Union Army officer and politician who served as the twenty-third President of the United States from 1889 to 1893. A grandson of President William Henry Harrison, he presided over the passage of the Sherman Antitrust Act and the McKinley Tariff, the admission of six western states, and the first Pan-American Conference. [1]
Early life and education
Benjamin Harrison was born on 20 August 1833 in North Bend, Ohio, into a prominent political family: his great-grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence and his grandfather, William Henry Harrison, was the ninth president. He was educated at the Freeman Grant Cary Pleasant Hill Academy near Cincinnati and graduated from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1852. [1]
He read law in Cincinnati, was admitted to the bar, and in 1854 settled in Indianapolis, Indiana, where he built a successful practice and became active in the newly formed Republican Party, serving as reporter of the Indiana Supreme Court. [2]
Civil War and Senate
In 1862 Harrison raised the 70th Indiana Infantry Regiment and served as its colonel, commanding a brigade in the Atlanta Campaign under William T. Sherman and fighting at Resaca, Peachtree Creek and Nashville. He was brevetted brigadier general at the close of the war. [1]
He returned to law and politics in Indiana, losing the governorship in 1876, and was elected to the United States Senate in 1881, serving one term. In the Senate he supported civil service reform, veterans' pensions, protective tariffs and the admission of western territories as states, and opposed the exclusion policies directed at Chinese immigrants in the form they took. [2]
Presidency
Nominated by the Republicans in 1888, Harrison lost the popular vote to the incumbent Grover Cleveland but won the electoral college, carrying the pivotal states of New York and Indiana. He took office in March 1889. [1]
His administration produced an unusually active legislative record for the period. The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 established the first federal prohibition of monopolistic combinations; the Sherman Silver Purchase Act expanded federal silver purchases; and the McKinley Tariff raised duties to historically high levels, a measure that proved unpopular and contributed to Republican losses. Six states, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, Idaho and Wyoming, were admitted to the Union during his term. [3]
In foreign affairs, his Secretary of State James G. Blaine convened the first International Conference of American States in Washington, laying the foundation of the Pan-American movement, and the administration expanded the navy and pursued commercial reciprocity treaties. Harrison also supported federal protection of Black voting rights in the South through the proposed Federal Elections Bill, which failed in the Senate. [1]
Later life
Harrison lost the 1892 election to Cleveland, in a rematch overshadowed by the death of his wife Caroline shortly before polling. He returned to legal practice in Indianapolis, lectured on constitutional law, and appeared as senior counsel for Venezuela in its boundary arbitration with Great Britain. [2]
He died of pneumonia in Indianapolis on 13 March 1901. His presidency is generally assessed as competent and legislatively productive but politically unsuccessful, remembered chiefly for the antitrust legislation that bears his Senate ally's name and for the expansion of the Union across the northern plains and Rocky Mountains. [4]
