Hallmarks of Harrison's administration were unprecedented economic legislation, including the McKinley Tariff, which imposed historic protective trade rates, and the Sherman Antitrust Act.

In addition, Harrison substantially strengthened and modernized the U.S. Navy and conducted an active foreign policy, but his proposals to secure federal education funding as well as voting rights enforcement for African Americans were unsuccessful.

Many have praised Harrison's commitment to African Americans' voting rights, his work ethic, and his integrity, but scholars and historians generally rank him as an average president, due to the uneventful nature of his term.

Harrison was admitted to the Ohio bar in early 1854,[24] the same year he sold property he had inherited after the death of an aunt for $800 (equivalent to $27,129 in 2023), and used the funds to move with Caroline to Indianapolis, Indiana.

[34] In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issued a call for more recruits for the Union Army; Harrison wanted to enlist, but worried about how to support his young family.

[43] Leading the 70th Indiana Infantry Regiment, Harrison massed his troops in a ravine opposite Corput's position, along with the rest of Brigadier General William Thomas Ward's brigade.

[45] In his report after the battle, Harrison wrote that "at one time during the fight", with his ammunition dangerously depleted, he sent his acting assistant inspector-general Captain Scott and others to cut "cartridge-boxes from the rebel dead within our lines" and distribute them to his soldiers.

[66] In 1876, when a scandal forced the original Republican nominee, Godlove Stein Orth, to drop out of the gubernatorial race, Harrison accepted the party's invitation to take his place on the ticket.

[88] Others, including Chauncey Depew of New York, Russell Alger of Michigan, and Harrison's old nemesis Walter Q. Gresham—now a federal appellate court judge in Chicago—also sought the delegates' support at the 1888 Republican National Convention.

Anticipating a principal part of Harrison's campaign, the convention also declared itself "uncompromisingly in favor of the American system of protection" and protested "against its destruction as proposed by the President and his party.

"[90] The convention insisted that "The pending bills in the Senate to enable the people of Washington, North Dakota and Montana Territories to...establish State governments, should be passed without unnecessary delay.

[96][82] At their National Convention in St. Louis, Democrats rallied behind Cleveland and his running mate, Senator Allen G. Thurman; Vice President Hendricks had died in office on November 25, 1885.

Clarkson, who had expected a full cabinet position, began sabotaging the appointment from the outset, gaining the reputation for "decapitating a fourth class postmaster every three minutes".

[128] Even with the reductions and reciprocity, the McKinley Tariff enacted the highest average rate in American history, and the spending associated with it contributed to the reputation of the Billion-Dollar Congress.

Most notably, on December 3, 1889, Harrison went before Congress and said: The colored people did not intrude themselves upon us; they were brought here in chains and held in communities where they are now chiefly bound by a cruel slave code...when and under what conditions is the black man to have a free ballot?

This legislation resulted from a bipartisan desire to initiate reclamation of surplus lands that had been, up to that point, granted from the public domain, for potential settlement or use by railroad syndicates.

[150][151] During Harrison's administration, the Lakota, who had been forcibly confined to reservations in South Dakota, grew restive under the influence of Wovoka, a medicine man, who encouraged them to participate in a spiritual movement known as the Ghost Dance.

[155] This policy, known as the allotment system and embodied in the Dawes Act, was favored by liberal reformers at the time, but eventually proved detrimental to Native Americans as they sold most of their land at low prices to white speculators.

"[159] Secretary of the Navy Benjamin F. Tracy spearheaded the rapid construction of vessels, and within a year congressional approval was obtained for building of the warships Indiana, Texas, Oregon, and Columbia.

By 1898, with the Carnegie Corporation's help, no fewer than ten modern warships, including steel hulls and greater displacements and armaments, had transformed the U.S. into a legitimate naval power.

In San Francisco, while on tour of the United States in 1891, Harrison proclaimed that the nation was in a "new epoch" of trade and that the expanding navy would protect oceanic shipping and increase American influence and prestige abroad.

Historian George H. Ryden's research indicates Harrison played a key role in determining the status of this Pacific outpost by taking a firm stand on every aspect of Samoa conference negotiations; this included selection of the local ruler, refusal to allow an indemnity for Germany, as well as the establishment of a three-power protectorate, a first for the U.S.

[173] Tensions increased to the brink of war: Harrison threatened to break off diplomatic relations unless the U.S. received a suitable apology and said the situation required "grave and patriotic consideration".

[177] Harrison was interested in expanding American influence in Hawaii and in establishing a naval base at Pearl Harbor but had not previously expressed an opinion on annexing the islands.

They solicited the support of Blaine, without effect, and Harrison in reaction resolved to run for reelection – seemingly forced to choose one of two options – "become a candidate or forever wear the name of a political coward".

[193] Many westerners, traditionally Republican voters, defected to the new Populist Party candidate, James Weaver, who promised free silver, generous veterans' pensions, and an eight-hour work day.

He believed that government had a vital role to play in bringing about social and economic justice, once saying: "The Republican theory has been all along that it was right to so legislate as to provide work, employment, comfort to the American workingman.

"[216] Harrison believed in the right of workers to earn a living wage, while also advocating a social security fund providing coverage for old age, accidents, and sickness.

As he proclaimed in an 1890 speech: I have in public expressed the opinion that every workingman ought to have such wages as would yield him decent and comfortable support for his family and enable him to keep his children in school and out of the mill in their tender age.

Historians have often given Secretary of State Blaine credit for foreign-policy initiatives, but Calhoun argues that Harrison was even more responsible for the success of trade negotiations, the buildup of the steel Navy, overseas expansion, and emphasis on the American role in dominating the Western Hemisphere through the Monroe Doctrine.