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Rh to Honorable John M. Harlan, the Republican candidate, who had a wide reputation as a stump speaker and was well versed in public matters and ready in action. Justice Harlan (now of the Supreme Court of the United States) said that of all the men he had ever met on the stump, Mr. McCreary was the most formidable and forcible before the people. While governor, he brought about peace among the factions warring in the mountains. He was a strong and wise executive, and was the youngest man who had filled this position in his state.

In 1885, he was elected to congress from the eighth congressional district of Kentucky, and was reelected continually until 1897. These twelve years in the national council were of much service to the country. He was a member of the committee on Foreign Affairs (and was twice its chairman); of the committee on Coinage and Weights and Measures; of the committee on the World's Fair; and on Private Land Claims; and he seems always to have been appointed for the studious and painstaking care he was in the habit of giving to the important questions to be discussed in committee. He originated a Land Court to adjudicate the claims growing out of the treaties between the United States and Mexico, known as the "Gadsden Treaty" and the "Gaudaloupe Hidalgo Treaty." The bills providing for this court he helped to pass through congress, and they "secured millions of acres of soil from the grasp of land pirates." He was also the author of the bill arranging for the Pan-American congress, and a "bill providing for the preliminary survey for ascertaining the advisability of railway communication between North, South and Central America." He introduced the bill for a Department of Agriculture and helped to forward the proposition to make the secretary of agriculture a member of the cabinet.

His speeches on agriculture, free coinage, the tariff, reciprocity, election bills, foreign relations, and other important subjects have been forceful and masterly. One of his most notable acts was in proposing the amendment to what was for that reason called the "McCreary Law," which finally settled the question of Chinese exclusion from the United States. He opposed the bill for the annexation of the Hawaiian Islands, which would have cost the country three and a half million dollars. He also helped to defeat the senate amendment for the construction of a sub-marine cable from San Francisco to Honolulu, which was to cost one million dollars. In 1892 he was