In the 1925 election, the Conservatives won a plurality of seats, just eight short of a majority government, but Mackenzie King decided to hold onto power with the support of the Progressive Party.

Meighen's brief second term as prime minister in 1926 came about as the result of the "King–Byng Affair," being invited to form a ministry after Mackenzie King was refused an election request and resigned.

Meighen unsuccessfully attempted to re-enter the House of Commons in a by-election for York South and resigned as leader shortly thereafter.

Early in his professional career, Meighen experimented with several professions, including those of teacher, lawyer, and businessman, before becoming involved in politics as a member of the Conservative Party.

[3][4] Meighen was first elected to the House of Commons of Canada in 1908, at the age of 34,[5] defeating incumbent John Crawford when he captured the Manitoba riding of Portage la Prairie.

Meighen served as solicitor general from June 26, 1913, until August 25, 1917, when he was appointed minister of mines and secretary of state for Canada.

Meighen was re-elected in the December 1917 federal election, in which Prime Minister Robert Borden's Unionist (wartime coalition) government defeated the opposition Laurier Liberals over the conscription issue.

[6] In 1919, as acting minister of justice and senior Manitoban in Borden's government, Meighen helped to subdue the Winnipeg General Strike.

[6] Shortly after the strike ended, he enacted the Section 98 amendments to the Criminal Code to ban association with organizations deemed seditious.

It took the return to Ottawa in late July 1919 of Charles Doherty, Minister of Justice, for the Citizens' Committee to get federal money to carry forward their campaign against labour.

[9][10] In April 1921, Meighen's government established a royal commission to investigate the grain trade, partially responding to calls from farmers to restore the Canadian Wheat Board that was dissolved the year previously.

[8] Believing that the economic power of the United States was the main threat to Canada's existence as a nation, Meighen advocated for protective tariffs.

However, his actions in implementing conscription hurt his party's already-weak support in Quebec, while the Winnipeg General Strike and farm tariffs made him unpopular among labour and farmers alike.

Meighen continued to lead the Conservative Party (which reverted to its traditional name), and was returned to Parliament in 1922, after winning a by-election in the eastern Ontario riding of Grenville.

King viewed Meighen as an unreconstructed High Tory who would destroy the nation's social peace after the traumatic domestic events of World War I.

Meighen strongly condemned King's statement, and quoted Laurier's remark made on an earlier occasion: "When Britain's message came, then Canada should have said, 'Ready, aye ready, we stand by you.'"

The crisis subsided within days before any formal request for Canadian help could be made, and Lloyd George's government was a casualty of the whole affair.

His strategy in Quebec consisted of granting Esioff-Léon Patenaude general autonomy to run a full campaign without any interference from Conservative headquarters.

After a scandal was revealed in the Customs Department, King was on the verge of losing a vote in the Commons on a motion censuring the government.

Debate continues today about whether King was attacking the Governor General's constitutional prerogative to refuse an election request by a prime minister, or whether Byng had intruded into Canadian Parliamentary affairs as an unelected figurehead, in violation of the principle of responsible government and the longstanding tradition of non-interference.

Meighen announced his resignation as Conservative Party leader shortly thereafter, though during his speech at the subsequent leadership convention it became clear he was attempting to rouse the floor to gain a new term.

Meighen, lacking a Commons seat, resigned from the Senate on January 16, 1942, and campaigned in a by-election for the Toronto riding of York South.

Still harbouring a deep hatred for the Conservative leader and thinking that the return to the Commons of the ardently conscriptionist Meighen would further inflame the smouldering conscription issue, King arranged for campaign resources to be sent to the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation's Joseph Noseworthy.

Meighen continued to campaign for immediate conscription as part of a "total war" effort through the spring and summer, but did not again seek a seat in the House of Commons.