The campaign of 1896 was not only remarkable in its inception, but continued throughout to be one of the most spectacular in our political history. At first there was general shifting of the old party lines and a "bolting" from all of the party candidates, but the Republican Party suffered the least in this respect. Mr. Bryan conducted a remarkable personal canvass of the entire country, and was greeted by large crowds to see him and hear his arguments. Mr. McKinley remained throughout the canvass at his home in Canton, Ohio, receiving hundreds of visiting delegations and delivering a large number of earnest speeches which were telegraphed over the country and carefully read. Monster street parades were held in the large cities and thousands of badges and lithographs adorned the persons and homes of the enthusiastic partisans, and, as the campaign drew to a close, the people were wrought up to a high pitch of excitement. One striking feature of the canvass was that the ruin and disaster of the four years of Cleveland's second term which, late in 1895, indicated an easy victory for the Republicans, was largely forgotten by the people in the new, exciting and novel issues raised and argued by Mr. Bryan, but those who carefully analyzed the returns of the States which voted in the elections held in August and September, and the trend of public opinion, saw that a Republican victory was almost certain, and this proved true on November 6, 1896, when the popular vote in the several States secured to McKinley and Hobart 271 electoral votes to 176 for Bryan and Sewall. The total popular vote at the election of 1896 was as follows: McKinley ......... 7,111,607 Bryan ............ 6,509,052 Palmer ........... 134,645 Levering ......... 131,312 Matchett ......... 36,373 Bentley .......... 13,968 William McKinley was inaugurated for his first term on March 4, 1897, and immediately called a special session of Congress to take action on the tariff. The Wilson Tariff Law, as already noted, had totally failed to provide sufficient revenue to meet the expenses of the Government, and the result was a steady and growing deficit in the Treasury. On March 18, 1897, Nelson Dingley, Jr., of Maine, introduced his Tariff Bill in the House, and it became a law with the President's signature on July 24, 1897. [Illustration: Second inauguration of William McKinley, March 4, 1901.]