1898 United States Senate elections in Ohio

Mark Hanna was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1898. He was appointed by Governor Asa Bushnell to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Sherman to become Secretary of State to President William McKinley. Hanna’s appointment was only good until the legislature met and made its own choice of a senator. He died in 1904, and his wife, Mary, was the first woman to serve as a senator in Ohio.

About 1898 United States Senate elections in Ohio in brief

Mark Hanna was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1898. He was appointed by Governor Asa Bushnell to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of John Sherman to become Secretary of State to President William McKinley. The Ohio legislature elected Hanna over his fellow Republican, Cleveland Mayor Robert McKisson, both for the remainder of Sherman’s original term and for a full six-year term to conclude in 1905. Hanna remained a powerful figure in the Senate until his death in 1904. The members of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, in drafting the Constitution, empowered state legislatures, not the people, to choose United States Senators. Hanna, a wealthy industrialist, had successfully managed McKinley’s 1896 presidential campaign. In the November election, McKinley defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan to win the presidency; Hanna served as his campaign manager and chief fundraiser. After the election, Hanna offered McKinley the post of Postmaster General, which he turned down hoping to become a senator once he was in the United States Senate. Hanna’s appointment was only good until the legislature met and made its own choice of a senator. He died in 1904, and his wife, Mary, was the first woman to serve as a senator in Ohio. He is survived by his son, Mark Hanna, Jr., and daughter, Mary Hanna, and grandson Mark Hanna III, both of whom served in the Ohio House of Representatives and the Ohio Senate.

His grandson, Mark, served as a United States Secretary of the Treasury under President George H.W. Bush and is the current chairman of the Republican National Committee. Hanna was also a member of the Ohio State House of Reps. and served as its chairman from 1897-1901. He served as the chairman from 1901-1902, when he was succeeded by his grandson, John Hanna, who served as chairman from 1903-1911. Hanna died in his home town of Cleveland, Ohio, and is buried in Mount Vernon, Ohio. His great-great-grandson, Robert Hanna, also served as Ohio’s United States Senator. Hanna is the only member of Ohio’s Senate to have served in both houses of Congress and the only one to have been elected to a full term in both chambers of the legislature. Hanna served in Congress from 1894-1905. He had a son, Robert, who was elected as a Republican to the Senate in 1897. Hanna also served in two terms as a congressman from Ohio from 1895-1907. He also was a former mayor of Cleveland and served on the Ohio City Council from 1896-1908. Hanna and his family are buried in Ohio’s Mount Vernon Cemetery, near where he once lived with his wife and two children. Hanna had a daughter, Barbara, who died in 2000. Hanna has a son and a daughter-in-law, Maryanna, who is also a former Ohio City council member and a former state senator. Hanna lived in Cleveland and died in Akron, Ohio; he was buried there on January 4, 1904.

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Mark Hanna William Hanna William McKinley Assassination of William McKinley