08

By Marilyn Odendahl
The Indiana Citizen
November 8, 2024

With his decisive win Tuesday night, Donald Trump has become the second person in U.S. history to be elected for a second nonconsecutive term as president.

Grover Cleveland – elected in 1884, defeated in 1888 and reelected in 1892 – was the first. The individual who interrupted Cleveland’s two turns in the White House was Benjamin Harrison, a Civil War hero and attorney from Indiana.

Elected as the nation’s 23^rd president in 1888, Harrison made lasting changes to the country and the presidency. He expanded the nation’s footprint by admitting six western states to the union, flexed America’s foreign policy muscle by convening the first modern Pan-American Conference and establishing a protectorate over the Samoan Islands, and boosted civil service reform efforts by eschewing political patronage and only appointing people who had competency in the areas in which they were hired.

The Hoosier president especially revered the American flag, seeing it as a symbol of the country’s unity and commitment to its founding principles. He initiated the tradition of flying the Stars and Stripes in front of schools and government buildings.

Harrison also referenced the flag as a reminder that America was bigger and more important than any single presidential administration, Charles Hyde, president and CEO of the Benjamin Harrison Presidential Site in Indianapolis, said.

“The flag cannot stand for the benevolent policies of an administration,” Harrison said. “It stands for more permanent things, for things that changing administrations have no power to change.”

In his run for the presidency in 1888, Harrison, a Republican, not only had different perspectives and policy ideas, but he was also a very different person than Cleveland, a Democrat.

Harrison had enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War and rose to the rank of brigadier general, while Cleveland hired a surrogate to fight in his place when he was drafted. Although both were lawyers active in politics, Harrison lost his bid for Indiana governor, before winning the 1881 race for U.S. Senate and eventually the presidency. Cleveland served as mayor of Buffalo and then as governor of New York prior to winning his first term as president. Harrison was a married family man with two children as well as grandchildren, while Cleveland was a bachelor (he eventually married while serving his first term in the White House) and had been accused of fathering a child out of wedlock.

The presidential campaign Harrison ran kept him close to home. He primarily ran for the White House by stepping onto the front porch of his home on North Delaware Street (now the home of the presidential site) and speaking to overflowing crowds of people, many of whom had traveled to Indiana by railroad just to hear him.

Harrison gave 80 speeches to more than 300,000 people, but his words reached even more potential voters because of his embrace of then-modern technology. After he spoke extemporaneously to the people on his lawn, his remarks, which had been transcribed by his secretary, was pushed out across the country on the telegraph lines.

Reading through those speeches, Hyde said Harrison emphasized what he had long advocated for: equality before the law.

“Again and again, I think that he returns to this idea of understanding the role of government within the bounds of the Constitution,” Hyde said of Harrison. The Hoosier president believed that if America were to be a successful nation, it would have to provide justice through the law and adhere to “equal application of the law, if we were to meet the intent for the founders,” Hyde said.that

Also, Harrison resisted suggestions he modify his message. Hyde noted Harrison supported civil rights for Blacks, and when the Republican nominating committee encouraged him to keep quiet on that issue, Harrison retorted, “I want it understood that I will make no compact of silence on this issue in accepting the presidency.”

Once in the White House, Harrison continued to push for equality and civil rights. He endorsed legislation that would have prevented the southern states from denying Blacks access to the ballot box and, according to the White House Historical Association, “vigorously enforced the 15^th Amendment,” which prohibits the denial of the right to vote on the basis of “race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”  However, Harrison could not stop the spread of Jim Crow laws and the suppression of voters under those laws is believed to have contributed to his loss in his 1892 run for reelection.

In November 1888, the outcome was different. Residents of Indianapolis filled the streets downtown and excitement bloomed as the election results were released. Jennifer Capps, vice president of curatorship and exhibition, pointed to newspaper accounts which described a roar that expanded across the city as people learned a Hoosier was going to the White House.

Harrison, himself, did not join in the festivities. He stayed at home and even went to bed before the winner of the presidential contest had been announced. Later, Harrison explained his decision to sleep by saying  that staying awake would not change the outcome of the race, but, if he did win, he would have to be well rested the next day to begin preparing for the presidency.

Harrison awoke in the morning to find out that although he had lost the popular vote to Cleveland, he had won the Electoral College, 233 votes to Cleveland’s 168 votes.

Hyde noted every election cycle is different and while the current cycle seems especially fraught with divisiveness, history can provide some reassurance. The levels of vitriol today “unquestionably are very high,” he said, but the past also has included times of division and acrimony.

“While it’s never a given that we’ll move past that, I’ll say there seems to be some kind of cyclical motion to these moments of heightened emotion,” Hyde said. But the country “returns then, we hope, to more civil civic discourse.”

Harrison and Cleveland put aside any anger or differences they harbored during the campaign to come together and make a peaceful transfer of power. On the day of the inauguration in March 1889, a heavy rain fell and Cleveland held an umbrella over Harrison, so the incoming president could remain dry while he took the oath of office.

Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.

The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.