President Harrison is often written off as an insignificant leader of the post-Reconstruction and pre-Roosevelt era. However, few stop to actually consider his achievements and bold initiatives. He was the first President of his era to seriously address the continuing the suppression of African Americans in the South and attempt to push forth groundbreaking legislation. When thousands of your citizens are denied their basic freedoms, that is a crisis, and although Harrison failed to achieve passage of his Civil Rights laws, he at least attempted to get them through in the first place. In foreign affairs, Harrison boldly ended tensions over Samoa by negotiating a protectorate over the islands with Germany and Britain. Moreover, on several occasions, Harrison demonstrated that he was willing to go to war when American interests were at stake. He took the nation to the brink of war with Chile over an incident involving harm done to American sailors there. Due to Harrison's threats, Chile apologized and paid $75,000 in reparations. While the Chilian and Samoan episodes perhaps cannot be considered as major crises, Harrison did indeed respond to these issues with bold leadership and tenacity.