1. Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd president of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893.
128 Facts About Benjamin Harrison
1. 2.
Hallmarks of Benjamin Harrison's administration were unprecedented economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff, which imposed historic protective trade rates, and the Sherman Antitrust Act.
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Benjamin Harrison facilitated the creation of the national forest reserves through an amendment to the Land Revision Act of 1891.
4.
Benjamin Harrison returned to private life and his law practice in Indianapolis.
5.
Benjamin Harrison traveled to the court in Paris as part of the case and after a brief stay returned to Indianapolis.
6.
Benjamin Harrison died at his home in Indianapolis in 1901 of complications from influenza.
7.
Benjamin Harrison was defeated by Cleveland in 1892, becoming the first president to be succeeded in office by his predecessor.
8.
Benjamin Harrison was born on August 20,1833, in North Bend, Ohio, the second of Elizabeth Ramsey and John Scott Benjamin Harrison's 10 children.
9.
Benjamin Harrison's ancestors included immigrant Benjamin Harrison, who arrived in Jamestown, Virginia, c 1630 from England.
10.
Benjamin Harrison was of entirely English ancestry, all of his ancestors having emigrated to America during the early colonial period.
11.
Benjamin Harrison was seven years old when his grandfather was elected US president, but he did not attend the inauguration.
12.
Benjamin Harrison's family was distinguished, but his parents were not wealthy.
13.
Benjamin Harrison attended the college for two years and while there met his future wife, Caroline "Carrie" Lavinia Scott.
14.
Benjamin Harrison was a daughter of John Witherspoon Scott, who was the school's science professor and a Presbyterian minister.
15.
Benjamin Harrison transferred to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, in 1850, and graduated in 1852.
16.
Benjamin Harrison joined the Phi Delta Theta fraternity, which he used as a network for much of his life.
17.
Benjamin Harrison was a member of Delta Chi, a law fraternity that permitted dual membership.
18.
At Miami, Benjamin Harrison was strongly influenced by history and political economy professor Robert Hamilton Bishop.
19.
Benjamin Harrison joined a Presbyterian church at college and, like his mother, became a lifelong Presbyterian.
20.
Benjamin Harrison was admitted to the Ohio bar in early 1854, the same year he sold property he had inherited after the death of an aunt for $800, and used the funds to move with Caroline to Indianapolis, Indiana.
21.
Benjamin Harrison served as a Commissioner for the US Court of Claims.
22.
Benjamin Harrison became a founding member and first president of both the University Club, a private gentlemen's club in Indianapolis, and the Phi Delta Theta Alumni Club.
23.
In 1857 Benjamin Harrison was elected Indianapolis city attorney, a position that paid an annual salary of $400.
24.
In 1858, Benjamin Harrison entered into a law partnership with William Wallace to form the law office of Wallace and Benjamin Harrison.
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Benjamin Harrison was an active supporter of the Republican Party's platform and served as Republican State Committee's secretary.
26.
The new partners worked together until Benjamin Harrison entered the Union Army after the start of the American Civil War.
27.
In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for more recruits for the Union Army; Benjamin Harrison wanted to enlist, but worried about how to support his young family.
28.
Morton offered him the command, but Benjamin Harrison declined, as he had no military experience.
29.
Benjamin Harrison was initially commissioned as a captain and company commander on July 22,1862.
30.
On January 2,1864, Benjamin Harrison was promoted to command the 1st Brigade of the 1st Division of the XX Corps.
31.
Benjamin Harrison commanded the brigade at the battles of Resaca, Cassville, New Hope Church, Lost Mountain, Kennesaw Mountain, Marietta, Peachtree Creek, and Atlanta.
32.
At the Battle of Resaca on May 15,1864, Benjamin Harrison faced Confederate Captain Max Van Den Corput's artillery battery, which occupied a position "some eighty yards in front of the main Confederate lines".
33.
At Peachtree Creek, Benjamin Harrison's brigade comprised the 102nd, 105th, and 129th Illinois Infantry Regiments, the 79th Ohio Infantry Regiment, and his 70th Indiana Regiment; his brigade deployed in about the center of the Union line, engaging Major General William Wing Loring's Mississippi division and Alabama troops from General Alexander Stewart's corps.
34.
Notwithstanding his memorable military achievements and the praise he received for them, Benjamin Harrison held a dim view of war.
35.
Several weeks after the Battle of Nashville, Benjamin Harrison "received orders to rejoin the 70th Indiana at Savannah, Georgia, after a brief furlough in Indianapolis", but he caught scarlet fever and was delayed for a month, and then spent "several months training replacement troops in South Carolina".
36.
Benjamin Harrison was promoted because of his success at the battles of Resaca and Peachtree Creek.
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Benjamin Harrison finally returned to his old regiment the same day that news of Lincoln's assassination was received.
38.
Benjamin Harrison rode in the Grand Review in Washington, DC before mustering out with the 70th Indiana on June 8,1865.
39.
Benjamin Harrison became a skilled orator and known as "one of the state's leading lawyers".
40.
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 US Supreme Court case Ex parte Milligan.
41.
Benjamin Harrison initially confined his political activities to speaking on behalf of other Republican candidates, a task for which he received high praise from his colleagues.
42.
In 1872, Benjamin Harrison campaigned for the Republican nomination for governor of Indiana.
43.
Former governor Oliver Morton favored his opponent, Thomas M Browne, and Harrison lost his bid for statewide office.
44.
Benjamin Harrison returned to his law practice and, despite the Panic of 1873, was financially successful enough to build a grand new home in Indianapolis in 1874.
45.
Benjamin Harrison continued to make speeches on behalf of Republican candidates and policies.
46.
In 1876, when a scandal forced the original Republican nominee, Godlove Stein Orth, to drop out of the gubernatorial race, Benjamin Harrison accepted the party's invitation to take his place on the ticket.
47.
Benjamin Harrison centered his campaign on economic policy and favored deflating the national currency.
48.
Benjamin Harrison was defeated in a plurality by James D Williams, losing by 5,084 votes out 434,457 cast, but Harrison built on his new prominence in state politics.
49.
When US Senator Morton died in 1877, the Republicans nominated Harrison to run for the seat, but the party failed to gain a majority in the state legislature, which at that time elected senators; the Democratic majority elected Daniel W Voorhees instead.
50.
Benjamin Harrison gave speeches in favor of Garfield in Indiana and New York, further raising his profile in the party.
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When Republicans retook the majority in the state legislature, Harrison's election to a six-year term in the US Senate was threatened by Judge Walter Q Gresham, his intraparty rival, but Harrison was ultimately chosen.
52.
Benjamin Harrison served in the Senate from March 4,1881, to March 3,1887, and chaired the US Senate Committee on Transportation Routes to the Seaboard and the US Senate Committee on Territories.
53.
In 1881, the major issue confronting Senator Benjamin Harrison was the budget surplus.
54.
Benjamin Harrison took his party's side and advocated for generous pensions for veterans and their widows.
55.
Benjamin Harrison unsuccessfully supported aid for the education of Southerners, especially children of the freedmen; he believed education was necessary to help the black population rise to political and economic equality with whites.
56.
Benjamin Harrison opposed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which his party supported, because he thought it violated existing treaties with China.
57.
In 1887, largely as a result of the Democratic gerrymandering of Indiana's legislative districts, Benjamin Harrison was defeated for reelection.
58.
Benjamin Harrison returned to Indianapolis and resumed his law practice, but stayed active in state and national politics.
59.
Benjamin Harrison placed fifth on the first ballot, with Sherman in the lead, and the next few ballots showed little change.
60.
Blaine supporters shifted their support among candidates they found acceptable, and when they shifted to Benjamin Harrison, they found a candidate who could attract the votes of many other delegations.
61.
Benjamin Harrison reprised the traditional front-porch campaign abandoned by his immediate predecessors; he received visiting delegations to Indianapolis and made over 90 pronouncements from his hometown.
62.
Benjamin Harrison received 90,000 fewer votes than Cleveland, but carried the Electoral College, 233 to 168.
63.
Benjamin Harrison neither defended nor repudiated Dudley, but allowed him to remain on the campaign for the remaining few days.
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Benjamin Harrison had made no political bargains, but his supporters had made many pledges on his behalf.
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Benjamin Harrison was known as the Centennial President because his inauguration celebrated the centenary of the first inauguration of George Washington in 1789.
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Benjamin Harrison was sworn into office on Monday, March 4,1889, by Chief Justice Melville Fuller.
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Benjamin Harrison gave his commitment to international peace through noninterference in the affairs of foreign governments.
68.
Benjamin Harrison began by delaying the presumed nomination of James G Blaine as secretary of state so as to preclude Blaine's involvement in the formation of the administration, as had occurred in Garfield's term.
69.
Nevertheless, Benjamin Harrison had alienated pivotal Republican operatives from New York to Pennsylvania to Iowa with these choices and prematurely compromised his political power and future.
70.
Benjamin Harrison made no comment on the matter for two weeks, then said he had always intended to purchase the cottage once Caroline approved.
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Benjamin Harrison had campaigned as a supporter of the merit system, as opposed to the spoils system.
72.
Congress was widely divided on the issue and Benjamin Harrison was reluctant to address it in hope of preventing the alienation of either side.
73.
In 1890 Benjamin Harrison saw the enactment of the Dependent and Disability Pension Act, a cause he had championed in Congress.
74.
Benjamin Harrison, having accepted a dissenting congressional Republican investigation report that exonerated Raum, kept him in office.
75.
One of the first appointments Harrison was forced to reverse was that of James S Clarkson as an assistant postmaster.
76.
At Secretary of State Blaine's urging, Benjamin Harrison attempted to make the tariff more acceptable by urging Congress to add reciprocity provisions, which would allow the president to reduce rates when other countries reduced their rates on American exports.
77.
The Act passed by wide margins in both houses, and Benjamin Harrison signed it into law.
78.
Benjamin Harrison approved of the law and its intent, but his administration did not enforce it vigorously.
79.
The silver coinage issue had not been much discussed in the 1888 campaign, and Benjamin Harrison is said to have favored a bimetallist position.
80.
Benjamin Harrison attempted to steer a middle course between the two positions, advocating free coinage of silver, but at its own value, not at a fixed ratio to gold.
81.
Benjamin Harrison thought the bill would end the controversy, and signed it into law.
82.
Benjamin Harrison endorsed the proposed Federal Elections Bill written by Representative Henry Cabot Lodge and Senator George Frisbie Hoar in 1890, but the bill was defeated in the Senate.
83.
Benjamin Harrison endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court ruling in the Civil Rights Cases that declared much of the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional.
84.
In March 1891 Congress enacted, and Benjamin Harrison signed, the Land Revision Act of 1891.
85.
Benjamin Harrison was the first to give a prehistoric Indian ruin, Casa Grande in Arizona, federal protection.
86.
Benjamin Harrison had electricity installed in the White House for the first time by Edison General Electric Company, but he and his wife did not touch the light switches for fear of electrocution and often went to sleep with the lights on.
87.
Blaine's persistent medical problems warranted a more hands-on effort by Benjamin Harrison in conducting foreign policy.
88.
In San Francisco, while on tour of the United States in 1891, Benjamin Harrison proclaimed that the nation was in a "new epoch" of trade and that the expanding navy would protect oceanic shipping and increase American influence and prestige abroad.
89.
The First International Conference of American States met in Washington in 1889; Harrison set an aggressive agenda, including customs and currency integration, and named a bipartisan delegation to the conference, led by John B Henderson and Andrew Carnegie.
90.
Historian George H Ryden's research indicates Harrison played a key role in determining the status of this Pacific outpost by taking a firm stand on every aspect of Samoa conference negotiations; this included selection of the local ruler, refusal to allow an indemnity for Germany, as well as the establishment of a three-power protectorate, a first for the US These arrangements facilitated the future dominant power of the US in the Pacific; Blaine was absent due to complication of lumbago.
91.
Benjamin Harrison engaged Whitelaw Reid, minister to France, and William Walter Phelps, minister to Germany, to restore these exports for the country without delay.
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Benjamin Harrison persuaded Congress to enact the Meat Inspection Act to eliminate the accusations of product compromise, and partnered with Agriculture Secretary Rusk to threaten Germany with retaliation by initiating a US embargo on Germany's highly demanded beet sugar.
93.
The first international crisis Benjamin Harrison faced arose from disputed fishing rights on the Alaskan coast.
94.
Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs Manuel Matta replied that Benjamin Harrison's message was "erroneous or deliberately incorrect" and said the Chilean government was treating the affair the same as any other criminal matter.
95.
Tensions increased to the brink of war: Benjamin Harrison threatened to break off diplomatic relations unless the US received a suitable apology and said the situation required "grave and patriotic consideration".
96.
Benjamin Harrison was interested in expanding American influence in Hawaii and in establishing a naval base at Pearl Harbor but had not previously expressed an opinion on annexing the islands.
97.
Benjamin Harrison appointed four justices to the Supreme Court of the United States.
98.
Benjamin Harrison had considered Henry Billings Brown, a Michigan judge and admiralty law expert, for the first vacancy and now nominated him for the second.
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Finally, at the end of his term, Benjamin Harrison nominated Howell Edmunds Jackson to replace Justice Lamar, who died in January 1893.
100.
Benjamin Harrison knew the incoming Senate would be controlled by Democrats, so he selected Jackson, a respected Tennessee Democrat with whom he was friendly, to ensure his nominee would not be rejected.
101.
Six new states were admitted to the Union while Benjamin Harrison was in office:.
102.
Benjamin Harrison was the incarnation of duty and he teaches us today this great lesson: that those who would associate their names with events that shall outlive a century can only do so by high consecration to duty.
103.
Benjamin Harrison typically made his best impression speaking before large audiences, as opposed to more intimate settings.
104.
Nevertheless, Benjamin Harrison's opponents made the gift the subject of national ridicule, and Mrs Benjamin Harrison and the president were vigorously criticized.
105.
Congressional elections in 1890 had gone against the Republicans; and although Benjamin Harrison had cooperated with congressional Republicans on legislation, several party leaders withdrew their support for him because of his adamant refusal to give party members the nod in the course of his executive appointments.
106.
At the convention in Minneapolis, Benjamin Harrison prevailed on the first ballot, but encountered significant opposition.
107.
Benjamin Harrison had been elected a companion of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States in 1882, and was elected as commander of the Ohio Commandery on May 3,1893.
108.
Benjamin Harrison traveled around the nation making appearances and speeches in support of William McKinley's candidacy for president.
109.
From June 1895 to March 1901 Benjamin Harrison served on the Board of Trustees of Purdue University, where Benjamin Harrison Hall, a dormitory, was named in his honor.
110.
Benjamin Harrison wrote a series of articles about the federal government and the presidency that were republished in 1897 as a book, This Country of Ours.
111.
In 1896, Benjamin Harrison remarried, to Mary Scott Lord Dimmick, the widowed niece and former secretary of his deceased wife.
112.
In 1898, Benjamin Harrison served as an attorney for the Republic of Venezuela in its British Guiana boundary dispute with the United Kingdom.
113.
In 1899 Benjamin Harrison attended the First Peace Conference at The Hague.
114.
Benjamin Harrison was an active Presbyterian and served as an Elder in the First Presbyterian Church of Indianapolis and on a special committee on creed revision in the national Presbyterian General Assembly.
115.
Benjamin Harrison died before he could cast his vote at the meeting.
116.
Benjamin Harrison has been described by various observers as a conservative, and was nicknamed the "Conservative President".
117.
Benjamin Harrison believed in the right of workers to earn a living wage, while advocating a social security fund providing coverage for old age, accidents, and sickness.
118.
In February 1901, Benjamin Harrison developed what was thought to be influenza, which later proved to be pneumonia.
119.
Benjamin Harrison was treated with steam vapor inhalation and oxygen, but his condition worsened.
120.
Benjamin Harrison died from pneumonia at his home in Indianapolis on March 13,1901, at the age of 67.
121.
Benjamin Harrison's remains are interred in Indianapolis's Crown Hill Cemetery, next to the remains of his first wife, Caroline.
122.
Historians have often given Secretary of State Blaine credit for foreign-policy initiatives, but Calhoun argues that Benjamin Harrison was even more responsible for the success of trade negotiations, the buildup of the steel Navy, overseas expansion, and emphasis on the American role in dominating the Western Hemisphere through the Monroe Doctrine.
123.
Closely scrutinized by Democrats, Benjamin Harrison's reputation was largely intact when he left the White House.
124.
Benjamin Harrison's presidency belongs properly to the 19th century, but he "clearly pointed the way" to the modern presidency that emerged under William McKinley.
125.
The bipartisan Sherman Antitrust Act Benjamin Harrison signed into law remains in effect and was the most important legislation the 51st Congress passed.
126.
Benjamin Harrison was featured on the five-dollar National Bank Notes from the third charter period, beginning in 1902.
127.
In 1951, Benjamin Harrison's home was opened to the public as a library and museum.
128.
Benjamin Harrison served as a Purdue University Trustee for the last six years of his life.