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Harrison was born in 1833 on a farm by the Ohio River, just west of Cincinnati. He attended Miami University in Ohio and read law in Cincinnati. He moved to Indianapolis, where he practiced law and campaigned for the Republican Party. Benjamin Harrison married Caroline Lavinia Scott in 1853. When the Civil War broke out, he volunteered and was made Colonel of the 70th Volunteer Infantry, rising to the rank of Brigadier General.
Harrison was defeated in the race for Governor of Indiana in 1876, but in the 1880's he served in the United States Senate, where he championed the rights of First Nations people, homesteaders, and Civil War veterans.
In the Presidential election of 1888, Harrison received 100,000 fewer popular votes than his opponent Grover Cleveland, but carried the Electoral College 233 to 168. In his only term as President, Harrison was proud of his foreign policy accomplishments. The first Pan American Congress met in Washington in 1889 on his watch, establishing what became the Pan American Union. At the end of his administration Harrison submitted to the Senate a treaty to annex Hawaii, but to his disappointment, President Cleveland later withdrew it.
Substantial appropriation bills were signed by Harrison for internal improvements, naval expansion, and subsidies for steamship lines. For the first time since the war, Congress appropriated a billion dollars. When critics attacked "the billion-dollar Congress," Speaker Thomas B. Reed replied, "This is a billion-dollar country." President Harrison also signed the Sherman Anti-Trust Act "to protect trade and commerce against unlawful restraints and monopolies." This was the first Federal act attempting to regulate trusts, a cause that would later be championed by Theodore Roosevelt.
The most perplexing domestic problem Harrison faced was the tariff issue. The high tariff rates in effect had created a surplus of money in the Treasury. Low-tariff advocates argued that the surplus was hurting business. Republican Representative (and future President) William McKinley and Senator Nelson W. Aldrich framed a still higher tariff bill. But before the end of the Harrison Administration, the Treasury surplus evaporated, and prosperity lagged. Nevertheless, his party renominated him in 1892, but he was defeated by Cleveland. Late during the campaign in October of 1892, first lady Caroline Harrison died
After he left office, Harrison returned to Indianapolis, resuming the practice of law and establishing a reputation as a powerful advocate. He married the widowed Mrs. Mary Dimmick in 1896, a much younger woman, which caused a rift between Harrison and his children. He died in 1901, remembered as a dignified elder statesman.
If you're ever in Indianapolis, may I highly recommend a visit to Harrison House. The volunteers there still love the 23rd President and would vote for him in a heartbeat if they could.