The Tariff Act of 1890 raised taxes to 49.5% on 1,500-plus items. Championing the move was the "Napoleon of Protectionism," William McKinley, an Ohio Republican congressman who would be elected ...

As a Republican congressman from Ohio, he erroneously believed that tariffs would make the U.S. more prosperous and ...

McKinley, as Head of the Ways and Means Committee in Congress, pushed through the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890. That helped trigger the major recession of 1893. Later as president, he pretty much ...