William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft

William Howard Taft was the 27th president of the United States and the tenth Chief Justice of the U.S. He is the only person to have held both the presidency and the chief justice of the Supreme Court at the same time. His son, William Howard, was elected president in 2008 and served as vice president under President Barack Obama.

About William Howard Taft in brief

Summary William Howard TaftWilliam Howard Taft was the 27th president of the United States and the tenth Chief Justice of the U.S. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1857. His father, Alphonso Taft, was a U. S. Attorney General and Secretary of War. Taft attended Yale and joined the Skull and Bones, of which his father was a founding member. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft to be chief justice, a position in which he served until a month before his death. In poor health, he resigned in February 1930, and died the following month. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery, the first president and first Supreme Court justice to be interred there. Taft is generally listed near the middle in historians’ rankings of U. s. presidents. He is the only person to have held both the presidency and the chief justice of the Supreme Court at the same time, and the only one to have done so more than one time in a single presidency. His son, William Howard, was elected president in 2008, and served as vice president under President Barack Obama. He died in Washington, D.C. in 2009. He was buried in Arlington National cemetery, and is buried alongside his wife, Rosalie, and their three children, William, Mary, and William Jr. The Taft family was not wealthy, living in a modest home in the suburb of Mount Auburn. In 1878, Taft graduated, second in his class out of 121. He attended Cincinnati Law School, and graduated with a Bachelor of Laws in 1880.

After becoming a lawyer, he was appointed a judge while still in his twenties. He continued a rapid rise, being named Solicitor General and as a judge of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals. In 1901, President William McKinley appointedTaft civilian governor of the Philippines. In 1904, Roosevelt made him Secretary of war, and he became Roosevelt’s hand-picked successor. In 1908, he easily defeated William Jennings Bryan for the presidency in that November’s election. In the White House, he focused on East Asia more than European affairs and repeatedly intervened to prop up or remove Latin American governments. In 1912, he used his control of the party machinery to gain a bare majority of delegates and Roosevelt bolted the party. The split left Taft with little chance of re-election and he took only Utah and Vermont in Woodrow Wilson’s victory. After leaving office,Taft returned to Yale as a professor, continuing his political activity and working against war through the League to Enforce Peace. He also served as a prosecutor for Hamilton County and took the following January 1882 as assistant prosecutor for Commercial Collector. He resigned in October 1880, after President Chester A. Arthur appointed him as Commercial Collector, trying to share his share of his routine cases. In 1882 Taft took the post of Commercial Collector with his father, A. Chester Taft.