Harrison, Benjamin
, political leader in the American Revolution Harrison, Benjamin, 1726?–1791, political leader in the American Revolution, signer of the Declaration of Independence, b. Charles City co., Va. As a member (1749–75) of the house of burgesses, he protested against the Stamp Act (1765). He was a delegate (1774–78) to the Continental Congress and later governor of Virginia (1781–84). His son William Henry
Harrison and his great-grandson Benjamin
Harrison were U.S. Presidents.
Harrison, Benjamin
, President of the United States Harrison, Benjamin, 1833–1901, 23d President of the United States (1889–93), b. North Bend, Ohio, grad. Miami Univ. (Ohio), 1852; grandson of William Henry
Harrison. After reading law in Cincinnati, he moved (1854) to Indianapolis, where he was a lawyer and politician. He served in the Civil War as commander of an Indiana volunteer regiment and in 1865 was brevetted brigadier general of volunteers. A well-established corporation lawyer, he was (1881–87) a member of the U.S. Senate as a Republican but was defeated for reelection. The Republicans chose him (1888) as presidential candidate against Grover Cleveland, and he was elected in the electoral college, though Cleveland had the larger popular vote. Harrison as President approved all regular Republican measures, including the highly protective McKinley Tariff Act. His equivocal stand on civil service reform displeased both reformers and spoilsmen. The first Pan-American Conference was held (1889) in his administration. Defeated for reelection in 1892 by Cleveland, Harrison returned to his Indianapolis law practice. He later represented Venezuela in the Venezuela Boundary Dispute. Harrison wrote
This Country of Ours (1897) and
Views of an Ex-President (1901).
Bibliography
See his public papers and addresses (1893, repr. 1969); biographies by H. J. Sievers (3 vol., 1952–68) and C. W. Calhoun (2005).
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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Harrison, Benjamin
Born Aug. 20, 1833, in North Bend, Ohio; died Mar. 13, 1901, in Indianapolis. US statesman. A lawyer by education. President of the USA from 1889 to 1893.
Harrison reflected the interests of the industrial and financial oligarchy. He promoted the passage in 1890 of a new tariff law (the McKinley Tariff Act) and of the so-called Sherman Antitrust Act, which was repeatedly used against the labor movement. In 1889 he initiated the calling of the first Pan-American Conference, with the aim of creating a US-controlled customs union of the states of the western hemisphere. The Harrison government established a virtual protectorate over part of Samoa in 1889.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.