Benjamin Harrison: The American Presidents Series: The 23rd President 1889-1893

The scion of a political dynasty ushers in the era of big government. Politics was in Benjamin Harrisons blood. His great-grandfather signed the Declaration and his grandfather William Henry Harrison was the ninth president of the United States. Harrison a leading Indiana lawyer became a Republican Party champion even taking a leave from the Civil War to campaign for Lincoln. After a scandal-free term in the Senate-no small feat in the Gilded Age-the Republicans chose Harrison as their presidential candidate in 1888. Despite losing the popular vote he trounced the incumbent Grover Cleveland in the electoral college. . In contrast to standard histories which dismiss Harrisons presidency as corrupt and inactive Charles W. Calhoun sweeps away the stereotypes of the age to reveal the accomplishments of our twenty-third president. With Congress under Republican control he exemplified the activist president working feverishly to put the Partys planks into law and approving the first billion-dollar peacetime budget. But the Democrats won Congress in 1890 stalling his legislative agenda and with the First Lady ill his race for reelection proceeded quietly. (She died just before the election.) In the end Harrison could not beat Cleveland in their unprecedented rematch.. With dazzling attention to this presidents life and the social tapestry of his times Calhoun compellingly reconsiders Harrisons legacy.