So it came naturally about that in 1876—­the beginning of the second century of the Republic—­he began, by an election to Congress, his political career.  Thereafter for fourteen years this chamber was his home.  I use the word advisedly.  Nowhere in the world was he so in harmony with his environment as here; nowhere else did his mind work with such full consciousness of its powers.  The air of debate was native to him; here he drank delight of battle with his peers.  In after days, when he drove by this stately pile, or when on rare occasions his duty called him here, he greeted his old haunts with the affectionate zest of a child of the house; during all the last ten years of his life, filled as they were with activity and glory, he never ceased to be homesick for this hall.  When he came to the presidency, there was not a day when his congressional service was not of use to him.  Probably no other president has been in such full and cordial communion with Congress, if we may except Lincoln alone.  McKinley knew the legislative body thoroughly, its composition, its methods, its habit of thought.  He had the profoundest respect for its authority and an inflexible belief in the ultimate rectitude of its purposes.  Our history shows how surely an executive courts disaster and ruin by assuming an attitude of hostility or distrust to the Legislature; and, on the other hand, McKinley’s frank and sincere trust and confidence in Congress were repaid by prompt and loyal support and cooeperation.  During his entire term of office this mutual trust and regard—­so essential to the public welfare—­was never shadowed by a single cloud.

When he came to the presidency he confronted a situation of the utmost difficulty, which might well have appalled a man of less serene and tranquil self-confidence.  There had been a state of profound commercial and industrial depression from which his friends had said his election would relieve the country.  Our relations with the outside world left much to be desired.  The feeling between the Northern and Southern sections of the Union was lacking in the cordiality which was necessary to the welfare of both.  Hawaii had asked for annexation and had been rejected by the preceding administration.  There was a state of things in the Caribbean which could not permanently endure.  Our neighbor’s house was on fire, and there were grave doubts as to our rights and duties in the premises.  A man either weak or rash, either irresolute or headstrong, might have brought ruin on himself and incalculable harm to the country.

The least desirable form of glory to a man of his habitual mood and temper—­that of successful war—­was nevertheless conferred upon him by uncontrollable events.  He felt it must come; he deplored its necessity; he strained almost to breaking his relations with his friends, in order, first to prevent and then to postpone it to the latest possible moment.  But when the die was cast, he labored with the utmost energy and ardor, and with an intelligence in military matters which showed how much of the soldier still survived in the mature statesman, to push forward the war to a decisive close.  War was an anguish to him; he wanted it short and conclusive.  His merciful zeal communicated itself to his subordinates, and the war, so long dreaded, whose consequences were so momentous, ended in a hundred days.