"Sunday Morning" correspondent Mo Rocca explores the life and abbreviated time in office of America's 9th President, William Henry Harrison, who took ill during his Inauguration and died a month later.
I beg to differ! Since he was in office for 31 days, it means he was president for 744 hours (31x24). The inauguration speech lasted for two hours, which means it took up 2/744= 0.269% or roughly 0.27%! Not 0.28%!
@@Chloe-ej6ip You don't think I was relaxed?! I can assure you I was! I didn't humiliate or insult anyone! I just pointed out one small difference, and I can assure you I was and am relaxed! I am not related to William Henry Harrison in no way, so there is no need to get too excited either! I hope you feel satisfied with the answer!
“We are the mediocre presidents! You won’t find our faces on dollars or on cents! There’s Taylor, there’s Tyler, there’s Fillmore & there’s Hayes! There’s William Henry Harrison . . . I DIED IN 30 DAYS!”
Dont forget James Buchanan, the only President who did not ever have a wife/First Lady...and very may well have been the first and possibly ONLY gay POTUS.
That is American culture at its best. Yankee Doodle is a British song mocking colonial Americans being stupid. American took the song with pride and ride on to battle with it.
Everybody talking about that he died only 30 days after being the president..... How about he lived nearly 30 years past life expectancy at that time. 🤔
That's a bit misleading. The life expextancy was heavily weighed down by the much much higher infant mortality rate. If you made it to the age of 5 or so, it wasn't unusual at all to live into your 70s or 80s back then.
@@rankingeverydoctorwhostory8756 while that’s true it applied to everyone minors and adults alike. Antibiotics weren’t around, so strep throat, pneumonia, or any infection took you out.
@@paulfasse8032 and back then they often blamed getting sick on being out in the rain. William Henry Harrison spoke in the cold drizzle for two hours. It's the same medical knowledge that is why they purposely cut George Washington open and bled him after he got sick.
Harrison was probably the ultimate case of famous last words, with his delivering of the longest inaugural address in history on a cold rainy day without a hat or overcoat
@Mr. Graves I didn't forget about John Quincy Adams. His case was a bit different. There were four nominees that received electoral votes. Andrew Jackson won the popular vote, but no one had the electoral college threshold at that time. That election was decided by the House of Representatives.
@Mr. Graves But the situation was different. There were four legitimate candidates who all won some electoral votes. This wasn't simply a case of a president winning the office despite losing the popular vote. The House of Representatives had to step in and decide that election. Now, that's what was done if there were multiple candidates who pulled votes from the elephant and the donkey. That election of 1824 was the second and last time that the House decided an election. The only other time was in 1800 when Jefferson and Burr tied in the electoral college. After 36 voting sessions, Jefferson finally won the presidency.
@@jameswilson7790 Kennedy too. Nixon won the popular vote but people seem to forget that maybe because he was shown to be a crook just a bit over a decade later.
My grandmother grew up being told he was her like great great grandfather or something like that and her grandmother had the name of Harrison and she just did a DNA test and it turns out we are related to him! We have family history that connects back to virginia and ohio even though we only know our family here in Mississippi and Louisiana.
Might get into politics. We could use a good congress man that isnt Israeli...Become an Expert on Constitutional law and get in the fight to take back what once was rightfully ours. Or ...I guess a quaint life being manipulated into enslavement with the illusion of freedom isnt all that bad i suppose.. Idk
I live right near Battleground Indiana and my Grandfathers Mother was a Harrison but my family the Mastersons and the Nash Family used to have a have a Harrison Reunion every year because we were supposedly related to William Henry Harrison! My Grandfathers Mother died when he was young but I think Her name was Rita or Jamma Harrison in Lafayette Indiana if I'm not mistaken my Grandfather didn't talk about her much my grandfather passed away about a year ago!
W.H.H. Is the President we need today. Someone with their own ideas and policies set in stone. He would have been great back then too had he lives. He went into everything with an open mind. He would listen to both sides, ask questions and then pick a side to get behind. That is what we need in a President today. Someone that actually listens and once he made up his mind, no matter how unpopular that is what he stuck with. No flip flopping,
@Tracy Drawyer Quick Fact: President Harrison WAS BRITISH!!! It's insane how we revoluted against the British but then turn around and let a British person BECOME U.S. President!
3:09 ‘In general, I think we could rally around the idea of not making a two hour speech anywhere, under any circumstances...’ Modern senators: hold my beer
"it's like 110 today". Umm..that's not life expectancy works. The reason life expectancy was so low was because of child mortality, if you made it adulthood you were likely to live a while. George Washington, John Adams and James Madison all had mothers that lived quite a while, in particular James Madison's mother lived to be 98. That isn't to say that 68 back then wasn't older pound for pound than it is today, but to say it's comparable to 110 is absolutely ludicrous.
Nelly Madison died in February 1829 at 98. Three months later in May 1829, LBJ's great-great-great grandfather John Johnson Sr died at... 104. (1725-1829). LBJ didn't inherit his health. LBJ's grandpa Sam Johnson Sr died at 76. He married Eliza Bunton. Apparently the Bunton's weren't as healthy, especially in terms of heart issues among the men. Their son, Sam Johnson Jr married Rebekah Baines, also from a family of poor heart health among the men. Sam Johnson Jr dropped dead of a heart attack at just 60 in 1937 during his son LBJ's first year in congress. When LBJ died in 1973, he was 64, but looked like 84 and felt like 104 (ironically the actual age of his more genetically blessed ancestor). All the men of the Johnson family since Sam Johnson Sr (1838-1915) have died before 65
@@hozonkai9967 Yeah the point I was making was that it's stupid to say 68 was "like 110 back then" because it wasn't, that's not how life expectancy works
@@TheAutisticBrony It's crazy that John Johnson Sr was born during the reign of King George... the FIRST, and he died during the Jackson administration.
Somewhat more than a decade ago, I had the pleasure of discovering, in a library attic in Northern Vermont, one of the very few genuine Harrison presidential signatures, on a document appointing a U.S. Marshall (also bearing Daniel Webster's signature as Sec. of State). Subsequently sold at auction, it fetched enough to finance the construction of a much desired children's room for the lucky library.
Harrison gave his property The Point" farm on the banks of the Ohio river to his son John Harrison ( a congressman, I believe) who brought up his son Benjamin also a president there. My grandparents lived there in the 1940's and 50's. They tore it down for a plant or refinery of some sort. So much for history. I believe William Henry's father signed the declaration of independence. His name was Benjamin. What a family. Don't sell the Harrison family short just because of the briefness of his term.
his presidency may have been short, but his full name, inaugural speech, and military achievements before becoming commander in chief were quite extensive
This video doesn't even cover half of it- his son, the 23rd president, was one of the most bizarre figures in American history. Some strange but true facts about this guy: his name was actually Funny Valentine, but his campaign manager had him change it to Benjamin Harrison in public. He also constantly wore a pink shirt and had a platinum blond mullet, which was so scandalous that they had to change his appearance in portraits. His craziest feat was when he gave a 2 hour speech about napkins that brought the audience to tears. Legend has it he even had an American flag engraved on his back! Wish we had a patriot like him nowadays.
Benjamin Harrison wasn’t actually that good of a president. His public relations to the native Americans at the time were rather unpleasant, and he did very little action during his presidency that had a significant impact.
Also the President at the origination of the curse of Tecumseh. Harrison commanded battles against the Indian tribes that resisted the westward expansion of the United States. Tecumseh’s brother was defeated by Harrison’s troops in a battle near the Tippecanoe River. Starting with his death, every 20 years the president has either died in office or been the target of an assassination attempt.
Although Harrison was probably daft to give a 2 hour speech on his inaugural address, but considering that the barely got started when he died, there are some people I've heard express the view that to say he was a bad President was unfair as he hardly had any time to get anything done when he got ill and ultimately passed away after 31 days in office
Plus this video is an outright lie. Harrison didn’t get sick until 2-3 weeks after this speech, in part to D.C’s terrible water system being downstream from the city’s sewage system. As a result he more likely died of some combo of typhoid fever and pneumonia.
@@theclephane2914 Tecumseh was the native American commander in the northwest campaign of the war of 1812. He's best known for stopping the massacre at Dudley's defeat. Generally known as an excellent leader. He wasn't hunted or killed off, he died in battle.
My great great grandfather whose parents came to the US from Lorraine Germany, was baptized by then President William Henry Harrison and was named William Henry Harrison Metzgar. I've always been curious as to family events at that time.
His entire presidency in a nutshell: Due to Van Buren being so unpopular, Harrison gets elected and gave the longest inauguration speech and due to him refusing to wear a jacket during the speech in cold weather, he got sick with a cold that turned into pneumonia then died with his Vice President John Tyler becoming the next president
Except that he didn’t got sick until three weeks after his speech. It’s more likely he died due to the bad water supply in the White House at the time causing him to get really sick. Plus his doctors drew out his blood only to make things worse for him. Not to mention that he was 68.
@@CaptainSpalding72 Well we really don't know but most likely he died from an septic shock due to typhoid, which he probably contracted from the White House water supply, which was downstream from where sewage was dumped. Polk and Taylor died the same way.
@@michaeljones155 Its speculated currently and it most likely came from here. However, the poor sanitary conditions, especially in the 19th century. For example, the London Cholera outbreak (1854) is a major example of this with poor sewage contaminating water supply. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24962997 US National Library Of Medicine
An 1841 medical journal I bought described Harrison's illness and treatment, in detail. Nightmarish, to say the least. I don't recall it speculating about the cause of the illness (often claimed to be his long inaugural address but now thought to be the contaminated water supply the White House used). One piece of trivia about Harrison: he sat for a daguerreotype that was lost over the years but fortunately was captured on film after his death. From what I've read. Various sources have various stories.
When I was in school, we had to write a report on a president of our choosing. Most of my classmates picked presidents such as Washington, Lincoln, etc. Being a bit of a smart aleck and not wanting to have to write a long report, I picked William Henry Harrison. I don't remember what my grade was but it sure didn't take long to write it. If you rank presidents on the basis of how much harm they did to the country, you could say that he was probably the best president we have ever had. Shame that the guy who still thinks that he is president didn't have the grace to emulate Harrison.
Don't make a 2 hour speech she says... A few years ago I was sitting in the church when my pastor preached for 2 hours and 40 minutes. Not unheard of, but its very rare in this day and age.
An old conservative maxim goes "those who govern best, govern least." You'd think WHH would rank above more than just Pierce, Harding and Buchanan on the Best to Worst Prez lists.
Very interesting.I like the study of the Presidents.Lord only knows what kind of President he would have been.His successor John Tyler turned out to have a rough time, the first so called "accidental President".
I've always wondered if Harrison got to sign ANY piece of legislation. His grandson, Benjamin, is also forgotten. J. Adams and his son, J.Q. Adams, served one term each. W.H. Harrison and B. Harrison served one term each. G.H.W. Bush and his son, G.W. Bush changed that, with father one and son two--only God knows how.
Called from a retirement which I had supposed was to continue for the residue of my life to fill the chief executive office of this great and free nation, I appear before you, fellow-citizens, to take the oaths which the Constitution prescribes as a necessary qualification for the performance of its duties; and in obedience to a custom coeval with our Government and what I believe to be your expectations I proceed to present to you a summary of the principles which will govern me in the discharge of the duties which I shall be called upon to perform. It was the remark of a Roman consul in an early period of that celebrated Republic that a most striking contrast was observable in the conduct of candidates for offices of power and trust before and after obtaining them, they seldom carrying out in the latter case the pledges and promises made in the former. However much the world may have improved in many respects in the lapse of upward of two thousand years since the remark was made by the virtuous and indignant Roman, I fear that a strict examination of the annals of some of the modern elective governments would develop similar instances of violated confidence. Although the fiat of the people has gone forth proclaiming me the Chief Magistrate of this glorious Union, nothing upon their part remaining to be done, it may be thought that a motive may exist to keep up the delusion under which they may be supposed to have acted in relation to my principles and opinions; and perhaps there may be some in this assembly who have come here either prepared to condemn those I shall now deliver, or, approving them, to doubt the sincerity with which they are now uttered. But the lapse of a few months will confirm or dispel their fears. The outline of principles to govern and measures to be adopted by an Administration not yet begun will soon be exchanged for immutable history, and I shall stand either exonerated by my countrymen or classed with the mass of those who promised that they might deceive and flattered with the intention to betray. However strong may be my present purpose to realize the expectations of a magnanimous and confiding people, I too well understand the dangerous temptations to which I shall be exposed from the magnitude of the power which it has been the pleasure of the people to commit to my hands not to place my chief confidence upon the aid of that Almighty Power which has hitherto protected me and enabled me to bring to favorable issues other important but still greatly inferior trusts heretofore confided to me by my country. The broad foundation upon which our Constitution rests being the people--a breath of theirs having made, as a breath can unmake, change, or modify it--it can be assigned to none of the great divisions of government but to that of democracy. If such is its theory, those who are called upon to administer it must recognize as its leading principle the duty of shaping their measures so as to produce the greatest good to the greatest number. But with these broad admissions, if we would compare the sovereignty acknowledged to exist in the mass of our people with the power claimed by other sovereignties, even by those which have been considered most purely democratic, we shall find a most essential difference. All others lay claim to power limited only by their own will. The majority of our citizens, on the contrary, possess a sovereignty with an amount of power precisely equal to that which has been granted to them by the parties to the national compact, and nothing beyond. We admit of no government by divine right, believing that so far as power is concerned the Beneficent Creator has made no distinction amongst men; that all are upon an equality, and that the only legitimate right to govern is an express grant of power from the governed. The Constitution of the United States is the instrument containing this grant of power to the several departments composing the Government. On an examination of that instrument it will be found to contain declarations of power granted and of power withheld. The latter is also susceptible of division into power which the majority had the right to grant, but which they do not think proper to intrust to their agents, and that which they could not have granted, not being possessed by themselves. In other words, there are certain rights possessed by each individual American citizen which in his compact with the others he has never surrendered. Some of them, indeed, he is unable to surrender, being, in the language of our system, unalienable. The boasted privilege of a Roman citizen was to him a shield only against a petty provincial ruler, whilst the proud democrat of Athens would console himself under a sentence of death for a supposed violation of the national faith--which no one understood and which at times was the subject of the mockery of all--or the banishment from his home, his family, and his country with or without an alleged cause, that it was the act not of a single tyrant or hated aristocracy, but of his assembled countrymen. Far different is the power of our sovereignty. It can interfere with no one's faith, prescribe forms of worship for no one's observance, inflict no punishment but after well-ascertained guilt, the result of investigation under rules prescribed by the Constitution itself. These precious privileges, and those scarcely less important of giving expression to his thoughts and opinions, either by writing or speaking, unrestrained but by the liability for injury to others, and that of a full participation in all the advantages which flow from the Government, the acknowledged property of all, the American citizen derives from no charter granted by his fellow-man. He claims them because he is himself a man, fashioned by the same Almighty hand as the rest of his species and entitled to a full share of the blessings with which He has endowed them. Notwithstanding the limited sovereignty possessed by the people of the United States and the restricted grant of power to the Government which they have adopted, enough has been given to accomplish all the objects for which it was created. It has been found powerful in war, and hitherto justice has been administered, and intimate union effected, domestic tranquillity preserved, and personal liberty secured to the citizen. As was to be expected, however, from the defect of language and the necessarily sententious manner in which the Constitution is written, disputes have arisen as to the amount of power which it has actually granted or was intended to grant. This is more particularly the case in relation to that part of the instrument which treats of the legislative branch, and not only as regards the exercise of powers claimed under a general clause giving that body the authority to pass all laws necessary to carry into effect the specified powers, but in relation to the latter also. It is, however, consolatory to reflect that 'most' of the instances of alleged departure from the letter or spirit of the Constitution have ultimately received the sanction of a majority of the people. And the fact that many of our statesmen most distinguished for talent and patriotism have been at one time or other of their political career on both sides of each of the most warmly disputed questions forces upon us the inference that the errors, if errors there were, are attributable to the intrinsic difficulty in many instances of ascertaining the intentions of the framers of the Constitution rather than the influence of any sinister or unpatriotic motive. But the great danger to our institutions does not appear to me to be in a usurpation by the Government of power not granted by the people, but by the accumulation in one of the departments of that which was assigned to others. Limited as are the powers which have been granted, still enough have been granted to constitute a despotism if concentrated in one of the departments. This danger is greatly heightened, as it has been always observable that men are less jealous of encroachments of one department upon another than upon their own reserved rights. When the Constitution of the United States first came from the hands of the Convention which formed it, many of the sternest republicans of the day were alarmed at the extent of the power which had been granted to the Federal Government, and more particularly of that portion which had been assigned to the executive branch. There were in it features which appeared not to be in harmony with their ideas of a simple representative democracy or republic, and knowing the tendency of power to increase itself, particularly when exercised by a single individual, predictions were made that at no very remote period the Government would terminate in virtual monarchy. It would not become me to say that the fears of these patriots have been already realized; but as I sincerely believe that the tendency of measures and of men's opinions for some years past has been in that direction, it is, I conceive, strictly proper that I should take this occasion to repeat the assurances I have heretofore given of my determination to arrest the progress of that tendency if it really exists and restore the Government to its pristine health and vigor, as far as this can be effected by any legitimate exercise of the power placed in my hands. I proceed to state in as summary a manner as I can my opinion of the sources of the evils which have been so extensively complained of and the correctives which may be applied. Some of the former are unquestionably to be found in the defects of the Constitution; others, in my judgment, are attributable to a misconstruction of some of its provisions. Of the former is the eligibility of the same individual to a second term of the Presidency. The sagacious mind of Mr. Jefferson early saw and lamented this error, and attempts have been made, hitherto without success, to apply the amendatory power of t
It was discovered recently that an old landfill contaminated the White House's water supply in the 1800's and caused several presidents to get sick. Harrison was one of a couple that actually died from it.
