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William Henry Harrison
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William Henry Harrison (1773–1841) was the ninth President of the United States and, at the time, the oldest person elected to the Presidency at age 67 (at a time when average life expectancy was only about 40, this was indeed quite old). He was also the first President to be a member of the Whig Party, the first President to use a railroad to travel to Washington, D.C., and the first President to die in office, serving only a month of his term, making him the shortest-serving President in the country's history.[1]
Tippecanoe and Tyler Too[edit]
Harrison's 1840 campaign was notable for being one of the first to try to make appeals to ordinary people. For example, the Whigs carefully crafted an image of him as a backwoodsman living in a simple log cabin. This image was inaccurate, as Harrison was born into a prominent family, had attended medical school, and grew up on a plantation that had over 100 slaves; nevertheless, this image of him supposedly being an ordinary American as well as his status as a war hero helped him stand out compared to his opponent Martin Van Buren, who was seen as a wealthy elitist.[2] His campaign distributed whiskey in log-cabin shaped boxes, held rallies including one that was attended by 60,000 people, and, showing that appeals to naked racism are nothing new in electoral politics, attacked Van Buren's Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson for having an affair with a black woman (Johnson would later be dropped from the ticket).[3] "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too",
set to the tune of a minstrel song, became one of the most popular campaign songs of all time, and it has even been covered by They Might Be Giants.[4]
What killed William Henry Harrison?[edit]
Traditionally, the belief was that Harrison caught pneumonia during his inauguration due to a combination of the cold and damp weather along with his refusal to wear anything that would actually protect him from said conditions while giving his inaugural address.[5] Said speech, using a massive 8,445 words, remains the longest inaugural address ever given in the history of the nation.[6] While it is true he did have pneumonia, he didn’t get sick until more than three weeks later on March 26.
However, modern scholarship proposes a different story. In 2014, Jane McHugh and Philip Mackowiak of The New York Times published an article arguing that it was not pneumonia, but instead either enteric or typhoid fever as a result of drinking tainted water while in Washington, D.C.[5] They note that, although pneumonia was generally what was believed at the time of Harrison's death, Harrison complained to his doctor, Thomas Miller, of things totally unrelated to pneumonia, and Miller never suggested Harrison undergo the typical treatments for the condition at the time. They also note that, if this were the case, Harrison did himself no favors by adhering to the medical standards of the time, which commonly made these medical conditions far worse than better.[7]
Curse of Tippecanoe[edit]
Harrison started a surprising trend in United States history, every President elected in a year ending in "0" died in office for over a century after the end to his life. To go down the list:
- Abraham Lincoln (elected in 1860) was shot by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.
- James A. Garfield (elected in 1880) was shot by Charles J. Guiteau in 1881.
- William McKinley (elected to a second term in 1900) was shot by Leon F. Czolgosz in 1901.
- Warren Harding (elected in 1920) died of a stroke in 1923.
- Franklin Roosevelt (elected to a third term in 1940) died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1945.
- John F. Kennedy (elected in 1960) was shot by Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963.
Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush, and Joe Biden have all beaten the curse, and Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe were in office before it took effect, so they are safe.
The phrase comes from a battle Harrison fought in Tippecanoe, Indiana during the War of 1812, where it was believed that a Native American by the name of Tecumseh, the leader of the Shawnee, put a curse on him.[8] Although no evidence exists this attempted curse ever occurred, let alone that it worked, it does certainly seem like a strange coincidence to say the least.
What could have been?[edit]
Harrison dying so early in his term means historians are left with essentially no record on what his vision for the country actually was, not helped by the fact that he refused to really take a stance on most important issues of the day while campaigning.[9]
His administration, if it had been able to occur, would have likely been of little note. Harrison's inaugural address showed he had a clear dislike of the expanding Executive Branch and essentially promised to just allow Congress to do whatever it wanted, even taking swipes at the notion of executive power, starting with the Jacksonians, that a President can use their veto power on legislation due to mere disagreement as opposed to it being unconstitutional.[9] As such, it makes sense why he had little desire to tell his opinions on public policy, because he did not believe making public policy was the goal of the job he was attempting to get.
References[edit]
- ↑ William Henry Harrison Britannica
- ↑ William Henry Harrison: More Than Just a Month-Long President, Jeff Nilsson, The Saturday Evening Post 9 February 2023
- ↑ William Harrison: Campaigns and Elections, William Freehling, UVA Miller Center
- ↑ Tippecanoe And Tyler Too by They Might Be Giants
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 What really killed the first President to die in office? Constitution Center
- ↑ Length of inaugural addresses of all American Presidents from 1789 to 2021 Statista
- ↑ What Really Killed William Henry Harrison? The New York Times
- ↑ Did Tecumseh’s Curse Kill Seven US Presidents? ThoughtCo
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 WILLIAM HARRISON: DOMESTIC AFFAIRS Miller Center