What follows is the address that nominated Benjamin Harrison for president in 1888. It contains many stories that were part of Harrison’s public image: his ability as a campaigner in a doubtful state, his Civil War service, and his illustrious name.
When, in 1880, Roscoe Conkling visited Indiana to take part in the memorable campaign of that year, he was asked on every hand, ‘How will New York go at the Presidential election?’ ‘Tell me,’ replied the great orator, ‘how Indiana will go in October, and then I can tell you how New York will go in November.’ In October, Indiana’s majority of nearly 7,000 for the Republican candidate for Governor informed the county how she would go, and in November New York and the Nation echoed her October voice. Indiana is no longer an October State. Yet not, in 1888, as before 1880, she seems largely to hold the key of the position. She is always regarded as being a close State; but when the Republican party is thoroughly organized, when it has done the preliminary work of the canvass well, and when its spirit is kindled into flame, Indiana seldom fails to elect the Republican candidates. She have never been better organized for a successful Republican contest than now; the preliminary work has never been more complete and thorough, and the Republican masses seem never to have been more highly roused and eager for the struggle.
Give Gen. Benjamin Harrison your commission to lead them, and they will immediately fall into line and press forward with enthusiastic confidence to victory. The convention that lately met at St. Louis disappointed the Democracy of Indiana by refuse to place an Indiana candidate on their ticket. There is a tide in the affairs of parties, as well as of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. The present condition of Indiana is the Republican party’s opportunity. Why risk shipwreck on any shallows when the full and welcoming sea invites your sails?
Benjamin Harrison came to Indiana in 1854 at the age of twenty-one. He came poor in purse, but rich in resolution. No one ever heard him make a first reference to his ancestors. Self-reliant, he mounted the back of prosperity without the aid of a stirrup. The hospitality of his ancestors had given their property to those whom they had served. The core had gone to the people, the rind only to them and their families. He received, indeed, something from them–their talents, their integrity, their fitness for public trusts, and what to some persons would have seemed a misfortune, but to a heart so stout as his was the highest good fortune, he received from them the inestimable legacy of penury.
Upon his arrival in the State he entered at once upon the practice of law and immediately achieved success. Amplitude of preparation, a large view of questions a mind marvelously prompt in yielding up its stores, and so exhaustive in its power of reasoning that no argument that would help his cause was ever found to have been omitted–these gave him rank at once in his profession. In union with these was found a fairness that sought no mean advantage and an integrity that never could be shaken. The young lawyer leaned on nobody’s arm for help. Modest but self-confident, his manner seemed to say, ‘I am an honest tub, standing on its own bottom.’ It was perceived from the start that in web and woof he was of heroic stuff.
While he was engaged in the practice of law and was rapidly rising to distinction, the great rebellion raised its head to strike down the Union. Relinquishing his profession, its emoluments, and the fame to which it was beckoning him, he yielded to the imperative demand of duty, raising a regiment and receiving from Morton the commission of a Colonel. He marched with Sherman to the sea; he was in the thick of the fight at Resaca and Atlanta, and his gallantry and the efficiency of his well disciplined command were so conspicuous on those fields as to draw from the heroic Hooker, in a letter to the Secretary of War, the highest possible commendation of his industry as a disciplinarian, and skill and intrepidity as a soldier.
He was not unknown to the people of Indiana before he entered the army. At a State election they had chosen him to the office of Reporter of the decisions of the Supreme Court. His opponents took the office from him while he was serving as a soldier in the field. The people, while he was yet in the field, re-elected him, and on returning home on the disbandment of Sherman’s forces he received his commission.
On account of his eloquence as a speaker and his extraordinary power as a debater, Gen. Harrison was called upon at an uncommonly early age to take part in the public discussions of the mighty questions that had begun to agitate the country, and was early matched against some of the most prominent speakers of the Democratic party. None who ever felt the point of his blade desired to engage with him again. Possessing oratorical powers of a high order, he has never spoken for mere rhetorical effect. He seems to have remembered the saying of the great Irish orator and patriot, O’Connell, that a good speech is a good thing, but that the verdict is the thing. He therefore pierced the core of every question he discussed, and fought to win in every contest in which he engaged.
He has taken part in every Presidential campaign since he came to Indiana, except the one that occurred during his service in the army, and he threw his sword into that. In recognition of his services in the ardent and prolonged struggles of the Republican party for the rights of man and for the restoration and integrity of the Union, the Republicans in the Legislature of 1881 chose him to be a Senator of the United States.
I have not time to enter into any detailed narration of his services in the Senate. His rank was among the highest. The delegates from Dakota will bear witness to the unremitting energy of his efforts to have that Territory admitted as a State into the Union, when, for the crime of being faithful to Republican principles, the Democratic party resolved to keep it out.
Everybody will recall his complete exposure of the civil service reform sham in Indiana under the present administration. He possesses all that you should desire in a President–soundness in Republican doctrine, a comprehensive grasp of mind, a calm judgement, firm principle, unquailing [sic] courage, and a pure character.
The eloquent gentleman from Illinois has commended to your favor another distinguished citizen of Indiana. A State’s place in civilization is denoted by the manner in which she treats whose who have served her faithfully. I have always honored old historic Massachusetts for the manner in which she cherishes the fame of those who, in whatever department of service, have reflected honor upon the Commonwealth; how she calls the roll with prides; how impatient she becomes when their names are unjustly aspersed or disparaged. I have not come here to disparage that honorable gentleman, brave and just judge, and heroic soldier whom the gentleman from Illinois has commended. If the roll of all of Indiana’s sons were called who led in battle or carried the knapsack, she would bid me honor them all.
There is no need that I should strive to dwarf others in order that Gen. Benjamin Harrison may stand conspicuous. He stands breast to breast with the foremost of Indiana’s soldiers; distinguished also in civic trusts; heroically faithful to public duty; skillful in marshaling men, to the sound of whose bugle they quickly rally and fall into ranks, whom they have followed in fierce canvasses, and more than once to the desperate charge crowned with victory.
Standing here, on behalf of a man who, disdaining all adventitious helps, has risen to distinction by the force of his own merits, I should regard myself unchivalric [sic] did I not recall, at least in brief review, some of the worthy public achievements of his ancestors. Whatever tends to show that a life which has been strong and useful has a foundation in traits have have long clung to the stock from which the man sprang, is in the nature of a guaranty that he may be trusted under all trials. It is something that the public, who are interested in being faithfully served, are entitled to know. We stand here to-day in the imperial city of the Northwest. The name of no family has ever been more identified with the Northwest than the family of Gen. Benjamin Harrison. It is woven into the very fabric of the history of her people. I need only give a passing reference to that sturdy Benjamin Harrison from whom he takes his name, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He was the Governor of Virginia when the possessions of Virginia embraced the whole of the Northwest. When the Northwest was formed by Congress into a Territory, William Henry Harrison was, first, its Secretary, and afterward its Delegate to Congress. When the Indiana Territory was formed, embracing all the territory of the Northwest except Ohio and a part of Michigan, he was appointed its first Governor. He held commissions as Governor successively from Adams, Jefferson and Madison. He was a man of deeds. While a Delegate in Congress he obtained the passage of a law requiring the sales of public lands to be made in smaller subdivisions than have ever been allowed before, so that the first time a man of humble means might now buy from his Government a home.
The historian McMasters, in his admirable history of the people of the United States, has said with reference to this measure that it did far more for the good of the country than even his great victory over the Prophet at Tippecanoe, or his defeat of Tecumseh at the battle of the Thames. He negotiated treaties with the Indians, while Governor, by which their titles to 70,000,000 acres of land was extinguished and the land was thus opened for settlement. In a single one of these treaties the Indians relinquished lands which embrace a third of Illinois and a vast section in southern Wisconsin.
He fought the battle of Tippecanoe, and, defeating the plans of the great statesman and warrior, Tecumseh, kept the portals of the West open for the admission of the emigrant, and what, though less shining, was not less welcome to the settlers of the Territory, scanty in means and struggling with difficulties, he procured the passage of laws that made the burdens of taxes lighter upon the poor. The language of the farm and the practice of hospitality were native to him. After the battle of Tippecanoe, when parting with a regiment of his soldiers, he said: ‘If you ever come to Vincennes you will find a plate, and a knife, and a fork at my table, and I assure you that you will never find my door shut and the string of the latch pulled in.’ And what he promised he faithfully lived up to.
We hear of civil service reform as if it were some quite new suggestion. But President Harrison, in a single month that he held office, directed the heads of the several departments to give information to all their officers and agents that partisan interference by them in the popular elections, whether of State officers or the Federal government, or the payment of any contributions or assessments on salaries, or official compensation for party election purposes, would be regarded by him as cause for removal. The old war Governor, the hero of Tippecanoe, having left Indiana in 1813, to enter a larger field of activity, and when, twenty-seven years afterward, he was a candidate for President of the United States, Indiana, though a Democratic State, gave him a majority of nearly 14,000 votes. He died in a month after he entered upon his great office, but not the memory of his services, which will ever remain fresh and imperishable.
And now to-day in Indiana, among a people estimating highly the character and services of Gen. Benjamin Harrison, and holding in affection the memory of ‘Old Tippecanoe,’ the latch strings of the people are hospitably out to you, and their doors are waiting to fly open at your touch to let in the joyful air that shall bear upon its wing the message that Benjamin Harrison, their soldier statesman, has been nominated for President of the United States.
From the Proceedings of the Ninth Republican National Convention, 1888, pg. 121-125.
There are a few factual errors in the address. Col. Harrison did not march with Sherman to the Sea. He was called back to Indiana on furlough for the 1864 campaign by Gov. Morton. Porter claimed that Harrison did not take part in the 1864 campaign, but he was on hand giving speeches that season.
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