William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft

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William Howard Taft (September 15, 1857–March 8, 1930) was a morbidly obese (now called Class III obesity) man who allegedly got stuck in a bathtub. He also served as President of the United States from 1909 until 1913, and was the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1921 until 1930, making him the only person to be in both positions. Before that point, he had also served as both a local judge in his home state of Ohio and as Secretary of War for President Theodore Roosevelt, which he earned after working to rebuild the Philippines, where "he became the first civilian governor" and managed to be very popular among the people of said nation. Of special note was his decision to treat those of the Philippines as equal to himself, which one biographer called an idea that "determined the success of his career as a colonial governor."

While serving as a Solicitor General, Taft created the legal concept of "confessing error," which is defined as "the procedure whereby the government notifies the Supreme Court that, because of constitutional or legal violations, the government should not have won its case."

Presidency

When President Roosevelt decided he would not run for re-election in 1908, he quickly threw his support behind his good friend Taft, with Roosevelt even telling Taft regarding federal officials who did not back him that he would "cut off their necks with the utmost cheerfulness if you say the word!" "Progressive Republicans, who had found their champion in Theodore Roosevelt, now expected Roosevelt’s handpicked successor to carry forward their reform agenda." So close was their relationship that "to some, the word 'TAFT' actually meant 'Take Advice From Theodore.'"

Taft was also helped by the fact that his opponent was none other than William Jennings Bryan, who had been the Democratic nomination for President in both 1896 and 1900 and lost both times. "Vote for Taft now, you can vote for Bryan anytime," became a common joke among Taft supporters who wanted to mock the absurdity of getting the nomination as many times as Bryan had while still not winning. Furthermore, "Bryan even more than Roosevelt sought to incite the popular clamor for additional reform and by doing so made Taft appear to be more conservative."

Although Taft did continue some of Roosevelt's policies, such as trust-busting, where he brought forward "seventy suits in four years compared with forty suits in [Roosevelt's] seven years, and conservation, many progressive Republicans quickly grew frustrated with some of Taft's more conservative choices. He failed to choose a single notable progressive to join his cabinet, he raised tariffs, and he fired a close Roosevelt friend and head of the Bureau of Forestry, Gifford Pinchot.

Even if one ignores this, the Taft Administration had numerous other issues, including Taft's insistence on relying "heavily upon the advice of his secretary of state, [Philander Chase] Knox. Knox, in both domestic and foreign affairs," despite the fact that "he lacked qualities of statesmanship." It's said that "his relationship with the Senate and the press" was rather poor, and that "he dealt poorly with most foreign diplomats, especially those from Latin America." His choice to appoint Horace H. Lurton to the Supreme Court, a rather old Southern Democrat who fought for the Confederacy similarly confused those around him.

This angered Roosevelt, who attempted to win back the Presidency in 1912. First, he attempted to secure the Republican nomination and, when that failed, he created his own party, the Progressive Party, also called the Bull Moose Party. Neither won the election, and it's widely believed that vote splitting between those who supported Taft and those who supported Roosevelt is directly what led to Woodrow Wilson being elected President.

Supreme Court

Taft was appointed Supreme Court Chief Justice by Warren Harding in 1921, a job he had always wanted even going back to before he ran for President. There, the most important case he decided was Myers v. United States which ruled Congress had no right under the Constitution to stop a President from firing a member of his cabinet.

Outside of that, the Taft Court was incredibly conservative, doing things like striking down a federal law that taxed companies which engaged in child labor because it has a "prohibitory and regulatory effect." In Balzac v. Porto Rico, the court ruled that sixth Amendment protections did not apply to those who lived in territories of the United States which were not officially recognized as states. Another decision, United States v. Lanza saw the court concluding it didn't violate double jeopardy laws to be tried for the same crime in both federal and state court.

Taft also sided with the majority that forced sterilization by a state government was acceptable in Buck v. Bell. In Lum v. Rice, the Supreme Court expanded the already existing doctrine of Plessy v. Ferguson to members of the "yellow race."

References

Presidents of the United States

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*Ran for VP on the "National Union" ticket together with Lincoln but was otherwise a lifelong Democrat