(William McKinley) "Attorney and Counsellor at Law" Document Granting Him Admission to Practice Law in Ohio
25th President. Impressive 8x10 document headed “The State of Ohio, Trumbull County”, granting future President William McKinley Jr. permission to practice law, in part:
Be it Remembered, That at a Term of the District Court, began and held at the Court House, in the town of Warren, in and for said County, on the 15th day of April, Anno Domini eighteen hundred and 67, Wm McKinley Jr. Esquire, was examined by sundry persons, learned in the law, and appointed by the Court for that purpose, and found qualified to practice as as ATTORNEY AND COUNSELLOR AT LAW: He thereupon appeared in open Court, and was duly sworn to support the Constitution of the United States, and also the Constitution of the State of Ohio…Whereupon is was ordered by the Court, that the said Wm. McKinley Jr. Esquire, be admitted to practice as an Attorney and Counsellor at Law, in the several Courts of Record of the State of Ohio…
The document is signed at bottom by the Clerk of the Court. Attractive Ohio District Court seal at lower left.
Two folds, small edge bite, otherwise nearly pristine condition.
The first such document from so early in the career of a future President that we have ever seen.
Born in 1843 in Niles, Ohio, William McKinley, Jr., grew up there, enrolled and studied briefly at Allegheny College, served for four years in the Union Army during the Civil War, and then served a year or so as an apprentice in the office of a Poland, Ohio, judge. In fall 1866, McKinley, age 25, came to Albany, one of the leading cities in the United States at the time, to study the science of the law. At Albany Law School, he attended lectures by its three faculty members and studied closely the judicial decisions they cited. In spring 1867, he returned to Canton, Ohio, to finish his preparation for the Ohio bar by reading law in an attorney's office, common practice at that time.
After admission to the bar, he practiced privately and served as prosecutor in Stark County; he was defeated seeking reelection to that office after one term. In 1876, McKinley, a Republican, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He was reelected numerous times and served, with one brief interruption, until he was defeated in 1890. In 1891, he was elected Governor of Ohio, and he was reelected in 1893. In 1896, after another brief period as a private citizen, McKinley received the Republican Party’s nomination and was elected President of the United States. He was, with running mate Theodore Roosevelt, elected again in 1900. In September 1901, President McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo, N.Y.