January 11

"The chains of military despotism, once fastened upon a nation, ages might pass away before they could be shaken off."

William Henry Harrison, 9th President, 1841-From a letter written to Simon Bolivar- Harrison has the distinction of being the first President to die in office and serving the shortest term in office. After giving a lengthy outdoor inaugural speech, he died of pneumonia only thirty days after his inauguration at the age of sixty-eight. In the early part of his career, he helped expand the young United States territory by buying land from the Miami tribe of Ohio. The tribe ceded land of several other tribes without authorization and the purchase was opposed by the Shawnee leader, Tecumseh. Harrison gained fame for repelling an Shawnee attack and defeating them in the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Afterwards he served in the House of Representatives and the Senate. In 1828, he was appointed minister to Columbia by John Quincy Adams. He witnessed the conditions there and feared Simon Bolivar was about to become dictator of that country. He wrote a rebuke which was rejected by Bolivar. Harrison was recalled to the United States when Andrew Jackson became President in 1829. In a letter written to Bolivar on September 27, 1829, Harrison states, in part:"...Depend on it, sir, that the moment which shall announce the continuance of arbitrary power in you hands, will be the commencement of commotions which will require all your talent and energies to suppress. You may succeed. The disciplined army at your disposal may be too powerful for an unarmed, undisciplined population; but one unsuccessful effort will not content them, and your feelings will be eternally racked by being obliged to make war upon those who have been accustomed to call you their father...I must say, that, if the tranquility of Columbia is to be preserved in this way, the wildest anarchy would be preferable. Out of that anarchy a better government might arise; but the chains of military despotism once fastened upon a nation, ages might pass away before they could be shaken off...I contend that the strongest of all governments is that which is most free.","Samuel Jones, Burr, The life and times of William Henry Harrison, page 288, L.W. Ransom, Philadelphia, 1840."