Benjamin Harrison V

Benjamin Harrison V (April 5, 1726April 24, 1791) was an American planter, merchant, and politician who served as a legislator in colonial Virginia, following his namesakes' tradition of public service. He was a signer of the Continental Association, as well as the United States Declaration of Independence, and was one of the nation's Founding Fathers. He served as Virginia's governor from 1781 to 1784. He was born into the Harrison family of Virginia at their homestead, the Berkeley plantation. He served an aggregate of three decades in the Virginia House of Burgesses, alternately representing Surry County and Charles City County. Harrison was among the early patriots to formally protest measures that King George III and the British Parliament imposed upon the American colonies, leading to the American Revolution. He was a slaveholder, though, in 1772, he joined a petition to the king, requesting that he abolish the slave trade. As a delegate to the Continental Congress and chair of its Committee of the whole, Harrison attended and presided over the final debate of the Declaration of Independence. He was one of its signers in 1776. The Declaration included a foundational philosophy of the United States: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." Harrison was elected as Virginia's fifth governor; his administration was marked by its futile struggle with a state treasury decimated by the Revolutionary War. He later returned to the Virginia House for two final terms. In disagreement with his traditional ally George Washington, Harrison, in 1788, cast one of his last votes in opposition to the nation's Constitution for its lack of a bill of rights. He left two descendants who became United States presidents—son William Henry Harrison and great-grandson Benjamin Harrison.