William Henry Harrison

[[File:William Henry Harrison by James Reid Lambdin, 1835 crop (cropped).jpg|165px|thumb|right|William Henry Harrison]]
{{uspolitics}}
'''William Henry Harrison''' {{lived|1773|1841}} was the ninth [[President of the United States]] and, at the time, the oldest person elected to the Presidency at age 67. He was also the first President to be a member of the Whig Party, the first President to use a [[Rail transportation|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.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Henry-Harrison William Henry Harrison] Britannica</ref>

==Tippecanoe and Tyler Too==
[[File:Tip and Ty first.ogg|thumb|right|The first verse of "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"]]
Harrison's 1840 campaign was notable for being one of the first to [[populism|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 [[slavery|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.<ref>[https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/2023/02/william-henry-harrison-more-than-just-a-month-long-president/ William Henry Harrison: More Than Just a Month-Long President], Jeff Nilsson, ''The Saturday Evening Post'' 9 February 2023</ref> His campaign distributed [[whiskey]] in log-cabin shaped boxes, held rallies including one that was attended by 60,000 people, and, showing that [[Southern Strategy|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).<ref>[https://millercenter.org/president/harrison/campaigns-and-elections William Harrison: Campaigns and Elections], William Freehling, ''UVA Miller Center''</ref> "{{wpl|Tippecanoe and Tyler Too||",}} set to the tune of a [[minstrel shows|minstrel]] song, became one of the most popular campaign songs of all time, and it has even been covered by {{wpl|They Might Be Giants||.}}<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcmx2gKv1NI Tippecanoe And Tyler Too] by They Might Be Giants</ref>

==What killed William Henry Harrison?==
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.<ref name=center>[https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/what-really-killed-the-first-president-to-die-in-office What really killed the first President to die in office?] Constitution Center</ref> Said speech, using a massive 8,445 words, remains the longest inaugural address ever given in the history of the nation.<ref>[https://www.statista.com/statistics/243686/length-of-inaugural-addresses-of-us-presidents/ Length of inaugural addresses of all American Presidents from 1789 to 2021] Statista</ref> 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.<ref name=center/> 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.<ref>[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/01/science/what-really-killed-william-henry-harrison.html?_r=0 What Really Killed William Henry Harrison?] ''The New York Times''</ref>

===Curse of Tippecanoe===
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.<ref>[https://www.thoughtco.com/tecumsehs-curse-and-the-us-presidents-105440 Did Tecumseh’s Curse Kill Seven US Presidents?] ThoughtCo</ref> 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?==
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.<ref name=Miller>[https://millercenter.org/president/harrison/domestic-affairs WILLIAM HARRISON: DOMESTIC AFFAIRS] Miller Center</ref>

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 [[Andrew Jackson|Jacksonians]], that a President can use their veto power on legislation due to mere disagreement as opposed to it being [[United States Constitution|unconstitutional]].<ref name=Miller/> 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==
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[[Category:Former United States Governors]]
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Categories: Former United States Governors, Former United States Representatives, Former United States Senators, Government incompetence, Military, Ohio, Presidents of the United States, United States history, United States politicians