Yet the hope that this rising prophet of protection for protection’s sake was removed from the field of political activity was destined to disappointment. In 1880 he accomplished the impossible, and was returned to Congress, where he resumed his labors, and renewed his march to the very leadership of the greatest legislative body in the world. In 1882 he was re-elected, but by only eight votes. And it will be remembered that 1882 was not a Republican year. The Republicans, on the one great national policy which should have inspired them, were apologetic, defensive, full of excuses and promises. They could not catch the bravery of William McKinley’s policy, nor adopt the frank straightforwardness which seemed to him not only the best policy but the most creditable statesmanship. And in 1882 the Democrats, rising to a courage and vigor hardly to be expected and rarely found in that organization, with a unity of purpose in its assaults on the tariff, had carried the country by storm. Cleveland was made Governor of New York State by the astounding majority of 192,000 against Folger, a consistent Republican of the most unexceptional character. Factional quarrels between the “Stalwart” and “Mugwump” branches of the party had given the opposition its opportunity. Congress was Democratic, and McKinley’s opponent in the campaign of 1882 brought a contest into the house, for the elimination of those eight votes. And toward the end of the session the Canton man was unseated, and his place was given to the Democrat. But it was the destiny of this man to do a great national work, to correct the national conscience, to fix a national policy of economic truth. And when his party in the Eighteenth district met in congressional convention in 1884 no name but that of “Major McKinley” was thought of. He was elected by the greatest majority ever accorded to a candidate there. He remained in the House through the Forty-ninth, Fiftieth and Fifty-first Congresses. In 1890 his district had again been gerrymandered with a view to his overthrow, and he was defeated at the polls for the Fifty-second. But his work in the Lower House was done, and nothing could undo it. He had made a record as the champion of the protective tariff, had called back the leaders of his party to their duty, and had reinspired them with a courage which has never since faltered nor diminished. In his second term he made a national reputation as a tariff debater, and when James A. Garfield was advanced from the House, William McKinley succeeded him on the Ways and Means Committee, the most valuable man on the most important group of men in the nation. In 1882 he began a systematic movement for the enactment of a tariff law which should be the expression of “the American idea,” and four years later that idea took form and effectiveness in the McKinley tariff bill which went into effect Oct. 6, 1886.