Show FIVE MINUTE CHATS ABOUT OUR presidents by JAMES MORGAN PRESIDENT FOR A MONTH 1773 february 9 birth of william henry harrlson harrison at berkeley va 1791 entered the army 1801 14 governor of territory of indiana 1811 battle of tippecanoe 1816 19 member of congress 1819 21 member of ohio senate 1825 28 united states senator 1828 29 minister to colombia 1836 candidate for president 1841 March marcha 4 inaugurated ninth president aged 68 april apri I 1 4 died in the white house aged 68 william henry harrlson harrison A ALTHOUGH was elected to the presidency as the ing cabla cabin candidate in the first of our frenzied parading campaigns he was vms born to one of the first families of virginia in a manor hoase on the winks banks of the aristocratic tames lames As a son of benjamin harrlson signer of the declaration with the blood of pocahontas in ills his veins and its as a descendant of a Cromwel llan colonel kolonel who signed the death warrant of a king no president lias has had bad a longer more historic lineage in ability william henry harrison fell below the standard of ills arede essers cs es sors he was elected not because pe be was a R grent great statesman or a great soldier but because he was thoroughly representative of the new west we st which nag as flattered to see in the white while house for or the first time a man ei created bated in its onn image at harrisons inauguration the presidency entered an eclipse and was held for 20 years by secondary characters who reigned but did not rule with men of the eminence of clay find and webster calhoun and benton latterly cass and houston douglas and davis case and wade sew ord and sumner in the senate distinction and leadership passed from the white house to the capitol it was an ignoble period in our politics mien lien both parties were dodging the irrepressible issue of slavery in the teeth of a piercing northwest wind the old farmer president elect bare bareheaded beaded and disdaining the protection of RD an overcoat rode horseback to the capitol after addressing a great crowd that shivered in its shawls and furs lie he insisted though halt half frozen on remounting his horse and leading the inaugural parade no sooner was the first whig president in the chair than the claims of factions and the clamor for patronage as assailed ailed him clay had declined cabinet honors and labor s ln in the confident expectation of playing the easier and more powerful role of the power ower behind the throne the to imperious manner of the he great commoner wounding woun aing the presidential pride he be was requested to make his calls at the white house as inere benl and inconspicuous as he be con leniently could thereupon his total absente absence became embarrassingly con I 1 the one clear mandate of the election of 1840 was 1 as to turn out the democrats and give the jobito jobs to the whigs straightway a hungry horde fell ak 0 4 A william henry harrlson harrison upon harrlson harrison and literally devoured him in a mouth month to it a day he was lead dead of pneumonia the first president to the die in office throughout the more than 60 years of its existence this briefest of administrations Is a pathetic little story of a simple lonely old man lured from his farm to be the sport of politics tiling lu in body fiody and harried in mind he was without the care and of if ills his good wife anna symmes her rison daughter of a new nev jersey colonel in the revolution who became one of the pioneer sId sadlers lers of ohio broken by the tha hard tuil of a frontier outler tr bou household sebold and sorrowing for the loss of eight of her ten children this alfe of one president and grandmother of another Bo still was making ready to take up her duties as of the white house when the news of her husban bus bauls la death came to her JOHN TYLER 1790 march 29 john tyler born in charles city charles city county va 1827 36 united states senator 1840 elected vice president 1841 april 6 became tenth president aged 51 1845 march 3 signed joint resolution for annexation of texas 1861 president of the peace convention in washington elected to confederate congress 1862 jan 17 died in richmond va aged 71 6 0 r E and the presidency ground GREATNESS found john tyler down on one mice knee playing knacks with his boys in a pathway of his dooryard in W wll I 1 llan liams isburg burg that stately old oil vice vicer r regal ega I 1 village of colonial virginia lie ile be had d not e eien een en heard that hard harrlson s oil w was a 1 until destiny without steam wire or rail call to carry it sped to him from washington by bout boat and buggy with the news that the president had been dead a day and that the empty presidential chair was uns a waiting the vice president tyler belongs among the third or fourth rate presidents president although a clean handed kindly man of good presence and poll hed manners lie he was it a mediocre country lawyer As john tyler stepped into the white house its door closed against 0 1 J f IPA s 1 att john tyler the party billich had elected him only five months before death had turned out the whigs utter after 0 0 days of power er and chiu caused ae t r political fortia T resolution clay looked upon the accidental president as only ft a regent for or the carrl son administration and for the whig party early in the extra session of congress that impression of the ren senator from om kentucky kenrud Y was hiis sharply corrected by a presidential veto of one of big awn tiuis a bil banking oking bill the whigs were wild with inith rage the democrats filled with glee the democratic senators hastened in a body to the white house where they were patting tyler on the back while a whig mob outside in the yard was maling making a NocI vociferous ferous but futile protest when the next nest veto came in clay lil himself called the cabinet together and the members with ith one exception cep tion agreed to resign the exception was none other than that of the secretary of state daniel webster where am I 1 to go the god godlike like daniel thundered in ills his bewilderment some told him to go to one place some to another lie he held on for two years until he had bad concluded clouded the negotiation of the ashburton treaty which fixed the disputed boundary between maine and canada resigned upon websters retirement tyler installed tn ki the state department his mentor and idol john C calhoun and thus completed the overturn the cabinet nas now out and out democratic and of the pro slavery brand texas had seceded from mexico which had abolished slavery and its american settlers who were facing the choice of slave labor or free labor were anxious to be admitted to tb the union the slave holders of the southern states wanted to expand their power over the vast texan empire as ark an offset to the rapid expansion of the tree free states in the great W west es t but northern sentiment was opposed at nu an opportune lor for the annexationists the ubiquitous john bull with ills his omnipresent gunboat upp appeared eared on the texan scene as a mediator bea een mexicans and texans nis his entry gave the slave interests the needed vill villain alrA for the play and the cry went up that we must annex texas to keep keel the british from grabbing it nevertheless the senate rejected overwhelmingly the treaty of an annexation exa thereupon tyler proposed propose ld to beat the devil around the stump and texas was annexed the last night nigh t of 0 the administration by a simple joint resolution rushed through i the two houses of congress 2920 by T en ht c |