Title: William Howard Taft Pdf The American Presidents Series
Author: Jeffrey Rosen
Published Date: 2018-03-20
Page: 208
Jeffrey Rosen is the author of several books, including Louis D. Brandeis: American Prophet. He is the president and CEO of the National Constitution Center, a law professor at George Washington University, and a contributing editor for The Atlantic. He was previously the legal affairs editor of The New Republic and a staff writer for The New Yorker.
The only man to serve as president and chief justice, who approached every decision in constitutional terms, defending the Founders’ vision against new populist threats to American democracy
William Howard Taft never wanted to be president and yearned instead to serve as chief justice of the United States. But despite his ambivalence about politics, the former federal judge found success in the executive branch as governor of the Philippines and secretary of war, and he won a resounding victory in the presidential election of 1908 as Theodore Roosevelt’s handpicked successor.
In this provocative assessment, Jeffrey Rosen reveals Taft’s crucial role in shaping how America balances populism against the rule of law. Taft approached each decision as president by asking whether it comported with the Constitution, seeking to put Roosevelt’s activist executive orders on firm legal grounds. But unlike Roosevelt, who thought the president could do anything the Constitution didn’t forbid, Taft insisted he could do only what the Constitution explicitly allowed. This led to a dramatic breach with Roosevelt in the historic election of 1912, which Taft viewed as a crusade to defend the Constitution against the demagogic populism of Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
Nine years later, Taft achieved his lifelong dream when President Warren Harding appointed him chief justice, and during his years on the Court he promoted consensus among the justices and transformed the judiciary into a modern, fully equal branch. Though he had chafed in the White House as a judicial president, he thrived as a presidential chief justice.
Taft wasn't a great president, yet we could learn something from him. I've read many of the volumes of The American Presidents series and found them to be usually good overviews. Jeffrey Rosen's work on the presidency of William Howard Taft proved an interesting look at a man chiefly remembered for his massive weight (over 300 pounds) as well as being the only person who served as both President and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Rosen builds the case that while Taft lacked the flamboyance of his predecessor Theodore Roosevelt, in some ways, Taft's administration proved more effective in the areas of conservation and regulating large business trusts. That said, Taft was more a jurist than a politician. He could place too much emphasis on loyalty and he made missteps. One, involving the dismissal of the head of the Forest Service, led to a break with his old friend Roosevelt and Roosevelt would challenge Taft for the 1912 Republican nomination and then as head of his own party. Taft finished third in the 1912 election, the worst showing for a Republican presidential candidate. However, he would enjoy a happy ending, being named Chief Justice in 1921 and spearheading constructive changes to the American court system. Rosen argues that in a time of populism and fears of executive over-reach, Taft shows that it is possible for a president to be mindful of constitutional limitations yet put together a solid record. The book reads very well and does make a reader think that while Taft is not one our better remembered presidents, his story has lessons for our times.A much maligned President who became a great Chief Justice It is hard to think a better qualified president and Chief Justice than William Howard Taft (1857-1930). Even before assuming the presidency, Taft had been an Ohio prosecutor and state judge; IRS tax collector; Solicitor General of the United States; Sixth Circuit federal judge; and Civil Governor of the Philippines (and briefly Cuba). After his presidency, he taught law at Yale before being appointed Chief Justice by Harding in 1921. Many solid bios of Taft are available, including Pringle's substantial two-volume study published in 1930. What is so remarkable about Jeffrey Rosen's book is that not only does he cover Taft's life in 138 pages of text, 25 pages of notes, a 4 page chronology and a 2 page bibliography, but he does it so well. The book moves smoothly through the material, and I never felt that any important points had been omitted or not sufficiently discussed.Rosen's Introduction lays out his overall views of Taft. Namely, he was a judicial president and a presidential Chief Justice. Unlike TR who felt a president could do about anything he felt necessary even if not specifically authorized in the Constitution, Taft was very circumspect and only exercised powers articulated in the document. Taft did not even try to lead Congress but was satisfied to make recommendations to the legislative body. Clearly Taft was not a believer in what we call today "the Imperial Presidency," so he did not come across as a strong leader in part due to this outlook. He also feared popular movements like the initiative and referendum, as well as juries, since they might be undisciplined and act dangerously. TR's advocacy of judicial recall absolutely horrified him and was one reason he split from the more popular Roosevelt.Several of the strongest chapters deal with Taft as president and give the reader a more positive view of his accomplishments than is usually the case. His views on the tariff and free trade are particularly interesting, as was his record as a "trust buster." But he got a real black eye from the Ballinger-Pinchot scandal, where Louis D. Brandies was able to demonstrate that Taft had backdated a key memorandum. Rosen's analysis of the 1912 campaign is also loaded with insights and well worth studying, especially as regards TR's New Nationalism versus Wilson's New Freedom platforms.I found Rosen's chapter on Taft as CJ absolutely the highlight of the book. The author outlines the many administrative improvements engineered by Taft, including a judicial conference, and the Judiciary Act of 1925 which made the Court's jurisdiction almost exclusively discretionary. He lobbied for and secured funding for the Court's building, completed long after his death. Rosen also discusses several of his key decisions and how he was able to enhance unanimity among his colleagues to a very high level. While we can celebrate Taft for his monumental role as Chief Justice, Rosen's book reminds us that we need to study the whole man and his career to really understand this much denigrated President.Rosen Makes Even Taft Appealing Jeffrey Rosen’s “William Howard Taft” is a short biography of the twenty-seventh President of the United States. This recent addition to The American Presidents Series, edited by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. and Sean Wilentz, is well written and surprisingly engaging, perhaps in part because of the times in which we now live.Taft was not exactly an exciting President. He revered and adhered to the law and the Constitution as if they were Holy Writ. With these as his guiding principles, Taft regarded the three branches of government as having all the powers these instruments afforded them and no more. As President, he steered important legislation to passage, particularly with respect to trade and labor, and kept the U.S. out of a war with Mexico. But he was not an inspiring leader; he ended up splitting the sympathies of his Republican Party, thus ensuring that he would be a single-term President.Taft’s first love, in any case, was the judiciary, and he pined to be named the Chief Justice to the Supreme Court of the United States. He got his wish when President Warren G. Harding named him to the Court in 1921. His almost nine-year tenure as Chief Justice was marked by decisions that closely adhered to the Constitution and to precedent: he ruled against the federal Child Labor Tax Law (“Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co.”), not because he supported child labor, but because it attempted “to intrude on the state’s authority to regulate the hours of labor” (p. 121); for warrantless wiretapping (“Olmstead v. United States”) because the Fourth Amendment forbid only “unreasonable searches and seizures” against fixed private property (p. 123); and for the President’s exclusive authority “to fire executive branch officials without being constrained by Congress” (“Myers v. United States”) (p. 123). Chief Justice Taft also convinced Congress to allow the Supreme Court control over its own docket, thus effectively reducing the Court’s case load, steered the Court to unanimous decisions 84 percent of the time (between 1921 and 1928), and initiated the campaign to erect a separate edifice to house the Court.Rosen alludes to the contrast between Taft and the current occupant of the White House. Beyond Taft’s views of a Presidency constrained by a strict interpretation of its powers under the Constitution, Taft also believed in a republican (small “r”) form of government that favored deliberation over the immediacy of more purely democratic mechanisms. As President, Taft “was opposed to discrimination against aliens,” including a literacy test for immigrants (p. 92). Moreover, Rosen notes, Taft would have been aghast at “the spectacle of tweeting presidents and representatives…” (p. 136). In a letter to the “Yale Daily News” in 1913, President Taft condemned “unscrupulous demagogues who to promote their interests do not hesitate to promote disrespect and even contempt for the Constitution…” (p. 106). On the other hand, President Taft might have understood President Trump’s demand for personal loyalty (p. 135).In these times, when the so-called Imperial Presidency is marked by ever more egregious acts that promote the self-interest of its incumbent, the somewhat boring presidency of the Ohioan thesmophilist seems like the right antidote. Rosen makes Taft downright appealing.
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