Benjamin Harrison

Benjamin Harrison is likely the most obscure and the least-known president in all of American history. In fact, if you google "most obscure president", one of the very first results is the Wikipedia page for Harrison's presidency. Even other obscure presidents have something to latch onto, thus allowing them to dangle right above the abyss of being forgotten, rather than plunge straight into it as Harrison has. Chester A. Arthur, for instance, took control of the executive branch following one of only 4 successful assassinations of a president in US history. After Charles Guiteau murdered James A. Garfield in 1881, Arthur assumed the presidency. Millard Fillmore is also very obscure, but his unique name attracts many memories. James K. Polk is relatively obscure but is known by a few for his massive territorial expansions (regardless of how damaging that expansion was). Harrison has none of these attributes. He expanded the country, but not to the extent Polk did. Unlike Fillmore, his name is very ordinary. The most he can attach himself to is his status as the grandson of fellow-President William Henry Harrison, but Harrison is another little-known president who died very early into his tenure. And considering how flawed Benjamin Harrison's tenure was, his obscurity may be, to him, a blessing rather than a curse.

In the world of civil rights, Harrison had a mixed record. He did one incredible thing: He sponsored the Lodge Bill. The 15th Amendment was ratified back in 1870 and mandated that no one lose the right to vote on the basis of their race. However, when Reconstruction ended in 1877, the enforcement of the 15th Amendment was basically dead, especially in the south. In 1891, Harrison supported the Lodge Bill. Were it to be enacted, the Lodge Bill would have permitted the US military to enforce the 15th Amendment. Considering that most protections black Americans enjoyed during Reconstruction were enforced by the military and successfully so, it is reasonable to believe that the Lodge Bill would have been able to maintain black voting rights. Unfortunately, when the bill came to a tie in the Senate, Levi Morton (Harrison's vice president) broke the tie by voting against the Lodge Bill. To Harrison's credit, he dropped Morton from the ticket when running for reelection in 1892. However, other elements of Harrison's civil rights record were hideous.

7 years before Harrison was inaugurated in 1889, Chester A. Arthur signed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. Congress had just drafted and approved a bill prohibiting all Chinese immigration to the US - save for consuls and ambassadors, who even then needed an English-language passport signed by the US consul working in China - for the next 20 years, among other things. Arthur vetoed the bill but knew his veto would be overridden. He made a compromise with Congress: Draft a new bill that only lasts 10 years and the president will sign it. In 1892, as the Chinese Exclusion Act was about to expire, Harrison signed the Geary Act. This law renewed the Chinese Exclusion Act, extending its terms all the way until 1902. As the Geary Act was about to expire, Theodore Roosevelt made it permanent. Harrison was complicit in the expansion and normalization of anti-Chinese immigration policies, which is vile and disgusting.

By the early 1890s, a small religious movement known as Ghost Dance was becoming increasingly popular amongst Native Americans. Ghost Dance promised Native Americans that if they abstained from violence and engaged in a set of ritualistic dances, then in 1891, all white Americans would be suffocated by an enormous pile of dirt. On top of that expanse of dirt, rocks, and mud, the Americas as they existed before European colonization would be restored. US authorities, in total violation of the Free Exercise Clause, banned Ghost Dance. On December 15, 1890, a prominent indigenous activist named Sitting Bull was killed while being arrested on charges of following Ghost Dance. Sitting Bull's death infuriated Native American communities, who then rebelled. On December 29, 1890, federal troops surrounded the rebelling Native Americans and when the latter refused to give up their arms, they were murdered. This infamous event is known as the Wounded Knee Massacre.

Contrary to popular belief, Harrison never ordered the Wounded Knee Massacre. In fact, while working in the Senate, Harrison admirably stood up for indigenous rights. However, those facts do not justify his abhorrent response to the Wounded Knee Massacre. At the end of 1890 and the beginning of 1891, Harrison handed out medals of honor to many of the soldiers who participated in the tragedy. Civil rights, however, was not Harrison's only source of blunders and misdeeds. One of the few things that Harrison is relatively famous for is that he admitted more states into the Union than any other president save for George Washington himself: Harrison admitted North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Idaho. I generally consider admitting states into the Union a good thing, as it gives the states' residents representation in Congress and the Electoral College. But with Harrison, he only admitted these states into the Union because they were Republican strongholds and he hoped they would boost his odds of reelection. It was a gross infringement on American democracy.

Economics was actually a decent area for Harrison. In 1890, he signed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act. This law was an attempted compromise between supporters of fiat currency and metallic monetary standards. To appease supporters of fiat currency, the Sherman Silver Purchase Act required the mint to produce another $156,000,000 not backed up by any precious metal. To appease supporters of a metallic standard (especially a silver standard), the law required the federal government to buy 4,500,000 ounces of silver each month. I like this idea. If the government is always buying silver, it can wait for the value of silver to increase and then sell it off, establishing a new source of revenue. Harrison also signed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which banned monopolies. Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson, and other progressive presidents would use this law to increase the freedom of consumers and decrease corporate corruption. Although, it should be noted that Harrison utterly failed in enforcing the Sherman Antitrust Act during his own presidency.

Interestingly, the subject of economics actually leads to another major flaw of the Harrison Administration: Harrison was an aggressive imperialist. Harrison served between the two terms of Grover Cleveland. Cleveland was a staunch advocate of free trade and so dramatically lowered tariffs during his first term. This caused numerous jobs to be shipped overseas, ensuring Harrison's narrow but present victory in the 1888 election. In 1890, Harrison signed the highest tariff in all of US history up until that point as a way of addressing the unemployment crisis. While this did work, it made life for American sugar farmers living in Hawaii very difficult. Their products became far more expensive in the US and so much less appealing to American consumers. For this reason, they began demanding annexation by the United States to eliminate the tariff problem.

On January 17, 1893, as Harrison's single term was drawing to a close and Cleveland's second term was on the horizon, these sugar farmers revolted. They toppled Hawaii's government and established a shell government that falsely claimed the Hawaiian people wanted to be part of the US. Harrison made the depraved decision to give in to these orders. He fell for the lies and asked Congress to approve a treaty adding Hawaii to the US. Thankfully, Congress dismissed Harrison's comments and refused to annex Hawaii. Grover Cleveland spent much of his second term repelling pressure to annex Hawaii and encouraging American farmers living in Hawaii to restore Queen Liliukelani (who led the country before 1893) to the throne. Ultimately, though, William McKinley formally annexed Hawaii in 1898.

During the presidencies of Garfield and Arthur - as well as the first term of Cleveland - Germany developed a fascination with Samoa. This was for two reasons: One, German sailors thought Samoa would be a good place to dock and stop while exploring Oceania, and two, Germany wanted to exploit Samoa's vast coconut trade. As a result, when Samoans became embroiled in a civil war, Berlin started supporting one side (the side led by a warrior named Tamasese) in exchange for a pledge by Tamasese that if he won the war, he would assume control of Samoa and implement policies that would further align and bind the island with Germany. Cleveland, a staunch anti-imperialist, quickly caught onto what was going on and was appalled. In 1887, when Germany sent 3 ships to Samoa to support Tamasese, Cleveland sent 3 American ships to Samoa in retaliation.

In March of 1889, as Harrison was being inaugurated, a severe hurricane took place in Samoa, destroying the 6 Western ships stationed around the country. This dramatically reduced tensions. Amidst the improving situation, Harrison brokered a compromise with Germany: Half of Samoa would go to Germany and the other half would go to America. This was a compromise with imperialist demons. As evidenced by even his refusal to annex Hawaii for the US, Cleveland initiated American involvement in the Samoan Crisis to oppose all imperialism, not simply to make way for US imperialism. Harrison seemed oblivious to this. He betrayed the entire point and carved up a nation of sovereign people with their own wishes like their land was a birthday cake. America was founded to be a democracy. We were rightfully upset with Britain because they were taxing us without our say. Why, then, should we use our sovereignty to take people's land without their say? It's a violation of America's heart and all the progressive values underlining its birth.

Other elements of the Harrison Administration were noticeably less problematic and actually quite beneficial. Using the revenue gathered from his tariffs, Harrison gave out dozens of new pensions to civil war veterans. In fact, Harrison spent so much money on this noble and beautiful pursuit that during his presidency, the legislative branch was nicknamed "the Billion-Dollar Congress". Harrison also foreshadowed the environmentalism of Theodore Roosevelt and the other Progressive Era presidents. The first forest reserve, for instance, was established by Harrison. Harrison also convinced Britain and Canada to stop overfishing seals off the coast of Alaska.

These accomplishments, however, tend to be quite minor. Indeed, Harrison crusaded against monopolies and in favor of the environment. Indeed, these would become causes championed by celebrated presidents like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, who deserve the blessings they receive from historians. But Harrison fell flat on his face in the crusade against monopolies, unable to enforce even the most basic tenets of the Sherman Antitrust Act. He celebrated some noble causes like veteran pensions and workers' rights (to an extent), but also celebrated the murder of Native Americans and discrimination against Chinese immigrants. He betrayed democracy by supporting imperialism and admitting Republican states into the Union but no Democratic states. He belongs at the bottom of my list.