Inspirational Quotes by Benjamin Harrison (23rd President of the USA)

Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901) was an American Republican statesman who served as the 23rd president (1889–93.) He was the grandson of William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, and a great-grandson of Founding Father Benjamin Harrison V.

Born in North Bend, Ohio, Harrison studied at Miami University in Ohio and, in 1854, settled as a lawyer in Indianapolis. During the Civil War (1861–65,) he joined the Union Army in 1862 and was the first lieutenant and then colonel of the 70th Regiment Indiana Volunteers. He served in General Sherman’s Atlanta campaign and fought in the battles of Resaca, Peach Tree Creek, and Nashville.

After the war, Harrison became brevet-brigadier-general in 1865. Returning to Indiana, he actively participated in Ulysses S. Grant’s presidential campaigns of 1868 and 1872. He was nominated by the Republicans for the state governorship in 1876 but was defeated. In 1880, he was chairman of his state delegation to the Republican national convention.

A U.S. senator for Indiana (1881–87,) Harrison supported civil service reform and the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. In 1888, he was nominated for President against the Democrat Grover Cleveland. The contest pivoted on the issue of free trade, and Harrison’s election was a triumph for protectionism.

Harrison’s administration (1889–93) saw the adoption in 1890 of the McKinley Tariff, which set the highest tariff rates in U.S. history, as well as the passage of the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. Harrison took an active interest in foreign affairs, pressing for establishing U.S. military bases overseas and sponsoring the first Pan-American Conference (1889.) In 1892, he failed to gain re-election against Cleveland and returned to legal practice in Indianapolis. He later served as chief counsel (1898–99) for Venezuela in its boundary dispute with Great Britain.

Harrison wrote This Country of Ours (1897.) Notable biographies include Ray E. Boomhower’s Mr. President: A Life of Benjamin Harrison (2018) and Homer E. Socolofsky and Allan B. Spetter’s The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison (1987.)

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