Consider, next, William McKinley, described by conservative commentator Fred Barnes as “America’s most underrated president.” A solid case can be made in behalf of Barnes’s assessment. In the surveys of historians, he has been ranked generally between fourteenth and eighteenth (with the exception of an eleventh ranking in one poll in 1982). But consider his accomplishments: He managed to get nearly all his priority legislation through Congress, including his signature high-tariff bill in the first months of his administration. He presided over robust economic growth throughout his nearly five years in the White House (before succumbing to an assassin’s bullet in September 1901). And he managed to end the agitation for the free coinage of silver, which had driven the country throughout his first presidential campaign.

Most important, consider this: When he was elected in 1896, America was not an empire, though it had pursued expansionist policies on the North American continent. Within two years of his tenure, America was an empire, with far-flung possessions that included Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, Hawaii, and numerous other islands of strategic significance to the country’s burgeoning deep-water navy. Cuba became a U.S. protectorate. All this was a product of the Spanish-American War, in which the United States destroyed two Spanish naval fleets and kicked that declining country out of the Caribbean and Asia. During McKinley’s presidency, America also took a significant step toward the pursuit of global markets.

Clearly, the McKinley presidency was truly a consequential one, and it seems curious that this president hasn’t ranked higher in the surveys or that his name doesn’t resonate with more force in the country’s historical consciousness.