President Benjamin Harrison Books

Easton Press Benjamin Harrison books

The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison - Homer E. Socolofsky - 1987
Benjamin Harrison - 2 volumes - Harry J. Sievers - 1989
Vol. 1 - Hoosier Warrior
Vol. 2 - Hoosier Statesman, Hoosier President

President Benjamin Harrison biography

Benjamin Harrison (1833-1901), American Statesman and twenty-third President of the United States, grandson of President William Henry Harrison the ninth President of the United States and great grandson of Benjamin Harrison one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Harrison was born in North Bend, Ohio, and educated at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio. He was admitted to the bar in Cincinnati, in 1853, and was elected reporter of the Supreme Court of Indiana in 1860. He entered the Union Army 1862, and served as colonel of a brigade which saw action at Kennesaw Mountain, Peachtree Creek, and Nashville. He was brevetted brigadier general of the volunteers in 1865, and returned to his Supreme Court post in Indianapolis. Benjamin Harrison was defeated, in 1876, as Republican candidate for governor of Indiana. In 1878 he was appointed a member of the Mississippi River Commission. He was elected United States senator from Indiana in 1880 and declined a post in the cabinet of President James Garfield, preferring to serve in the senate. He served as senator from 1881 to 1887, but was defeated for re-election.

The Republican Convention held in Chicago in 1888 nominated Benjamin Harrison for the presidency. He defeated President Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate, in the bitterly fought 1888 election, obtaining a majority of the Electoral College vote although losing the popular vote. During President Benjamin Harrison's administration the public debt was reduced and American industry expanded. The outstanding national events during his term in the office of the President were: the first meeting of the Pan-American Congress, passage of the McKinley Tariff act, passage of the Sherman Silver Bill, civil service reform, abolition of the Louisiana Lottery, and expansion of the United States Army and Navy. President Benjamin Harrison was nominated for re-election by the Republican Convention of 1892, but was defeated by his predecessor, President Cleveland. After leaving the Presidential office he returned to the practice of law. In 1899 he appeared as counsel for Venezuela before the international commission appointed to arbitrate the British Guiana - Venezuela Boundary dispute, and was the principal representative of the United States at the Hague Conference, held in 1899.

President Benjamin Harrison wrote the following books:

This Country of Ours - 1897
A collection of essays titled "Views of an Ex-President" - 1901

The Presidency of Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison was an early proponent of American expansion in the Pacific, a key figure in such landmark legislation as the Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the McKinley Tariff, and one of the Gilded Age's most eloquent speakers. Yet he remains one of our most neglected and least understood presidents. In this first interpretive study of the Harrison administration, the authors illuminate our twenty-third president's character and policies and rescue him from the long shadow of his charismatic secretary of state, James G. Blaine.

An Ohio native and Indiana lawyer, Harrison opened the second century of the American presidency in a rapidly industrializing and expanding nation. His inaugural address reflected the nation's optimism: "The masses of our people are better fed, clothed, and housed than their fathers were. The facilities for popular education have been vastly enlarged and more generally diffused. The virtues of courage and patriotism have given proof of their continued presence and increasing power in the hearts and over the lives of our people."

But the burdens and realities of his office soon imposed themselves upon Harrison. The biggest blow came at midterm with the Republicans' devastating losses in the 1890 congressional elections. In an era of congressional dominance, those losses eroded Harrison's position as a legislative advocate at least, for domestic issues.

His impact in foreign affairs was more lasting. One of the highlights of this study is its revealing look at Harrison's visionary foreign policy, especially toward the Pacific. Socolofsky and Spetter convincingly demonstrate that although Harrison's ambition to acquire the Hawaiian Islands was not realized during his presidency, his foreign policy was a major step toward American control of Hawaii and American expansion in the Far East.

Benjamin Harrison - Hoosier Warrior

In this opening volume of Harry J. Sievers' biography of our twenty-third President, the author has broken down the half-century-old wall of secrecy, procrastination, and neglect surrounding the private papers and personal life of Benjamin Harrison Indiana's adopted son. Here for the first time is the full, documented account of the early years of the grandson of "Old Tippecanoe."

From Harrison's boyhood on the family farm in North Bend, Ohio, through the early days of his marriage, political beginnings, and struggle to make a living as an Indiana lawyer, Father Sievers shows us a man whose integrity and modesty endeared him to his intimates, and whose boldness and courage in the Civil War won the devotion of his soldiers and earned for him a brigadier-general's star.

Although he was the grandson of a President and a descendant of a long line of Virginia burgesses, "Little Ben's" own chief assets were simply a devoted wife, a gift for courtroom oratory, and an endless capacity for plain, hard work. Nevertheless, in response to Lincoln's desperate call for volunteers, he left his law desk and and raised the 70th Indiana Volunteer Regiment, which he lead through such battles as Resaca, New Hope Church, and Kenesaw Mountain. It was after his daring charge "up the ridge" at Peach Tree Creek that "Fighting Joe" Hooker promised him his star: "Harrison, by God, I'll make you a brigadier for this fight."

The life of Benjamin Harrison, product of an Ohio-Indiana era now almost forgotten, is the story of a man of courage, independence, and integrity a fascinating commentary on the men, ideas, and politics of the day.

Benjamin Harrison - Hoosier Statesman

This is the story of the little Indiana lawyer who, in an age of political dishonesty, became President of the United States without seeking the office, or once sacrificing his honor or integrity.

Based on recently released private papers and the hitherto unpublished memoranda of Louis T. Mitchener, Harrison's presidential campaign manager, Benjamin Harriso: Hoosier Statesman introduces the Benjamin Harrison of 1865, a sunburnt veteran returning from the Civil War to Indianapolis and his young family, his long-neglected law practice, and the piled-up bills of three years' absence. Laying aside his blue uniform with its brigadier-general star, "Little Ben" proceeds to win himself a national reputation as a courtroom lawyer in such widely known cases as that of Nancy Clem, murderess; Hiram P. Brownleee, "kid gloves" client; and Lambdin P. Milligan, Civil War traitor.

A rousing campaign orator, Harrison rose quickly in politics, first as an active member of the Republican Party, then as junior senator from Indiana during the Arthur and Cleveland administrations. Colorful issues and personalities confronted him in his new public life. The 1880s in America was an era of open patronage and flamboyant political quarrels; the battle of the Western Territories for statehood, the "Greenbackers," the "Chinese Problem" on the Pacific Coast, and the metamorphosis of the "Boys in Blue" into the young and powerful G.A.R. The political scene knew personalities like Blaine, the "Plumed Knight" from Maine; Whitlaw Reid, owner of the New York Tribune; "Boss" Quay of Pennsylvania; "Boss" Platt of New York; and Morton of Indiana.