These are anxious times, in America and around the world, in which constitutional limitations on executive power, and the independent judges necessary to enforce them, are under attack from populist politicians, amplified by social media technologies that channel and intensify divisive passions. William Howard Taft devoted his career, as president and chief justice, to defending the constitutional structures that divided the powers of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, filtered the will of the people, and encouraged thoughtful deliberation among their representatives. The populist forces that Taft assailed as our most judicial president and presidential chief justice once again threaten to undermine the Constitution in precisely the ways that Taft predicted. The fact that all three branches today are institutionally equipped, if they choose, to resist these populist threats and to defend the rule of law is an inspiring tribute to Taft’s constitutional legacy.
Notes
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INTRODUCTION
1. Helen Herron Taft, Recollections of Full Years (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1914), 61, https://archive.org/details/recollectionsfu02taftgoog.
2. Ibid., 61–62.
3. “Presidential Historians Survey 2017,” C-SPAN, https://www.c-span.org/presidentsurvey2017/?page=overall [https://perma.cc/YUV8-LFVL].
4. Roy M. Mersky and Albert P. Blaustein, Survey (1993), reprinted in William G. Ross, “The Ratings Game: Factors That Influence Judicial Reputation,” Marquette Law Review 79 (1996): app. I.
5. William Howard Taft, Popular Government: Its Essence, Its Permanence, and Its Perils, in The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, vol. 5, ed. David Potash and Donald F. Anderson (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003), 100.
6. Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, vol. 1 (Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1986), 100.
7. Alpheus Thomas Mason, William Howard Taft: Chief Justice (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1965), 13.
8. Jonathan Lurie, William Howard Taft: The Travails of a Progressive Conservative (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), xii.
9. Lawrence F. Abbott, ed., Taft and Roosevelt: The Intimate Letters of Archie Butt, Military Aide, vol. 1 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran, 1930), 298.
10. William Howard Taft, “Speech Accepting the Nomination for the Presidency by the Republican National Committee,” Aug. 1, 1912, in The Republican Campaign Text-Book, Republican National Committee (1912): 11, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.hw2hd8.
11. Alpheus Thomas Mason, “President By Chance, Chief Justice By Choice,” American Bar Association Journal 55 (1969): 39.
12. William Howard Taft, “Address at Georgia State Fair Grounds on Wisdom and Necessity of Following the Law,” Nov. 4, 1909, in The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, vol. 3, ed. David H. Burton (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2002), 323.
13. Theodore Roosevelt, “The Presidency; Making an Old Party Progressive,” in An Autobiography (1858–1919) (New York: Macmillan, 1913; Bartleby.com, 1998), http://www.bartleby.com/55/10.html [https://perma.cc/J5DT-CVJP].
14. William Howard Taft, The President and His Powers, in The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, vol. 6, ed. W. Carey McWilliams and Frank X. Gerrity (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2003), 104. (Originally published in 1916 as Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers.)
15. George Will, “Speech at the National Constitution Center’s Madisonian Commission Launch,” Apr. 13, 2017, C-SPAN, https://www.c-span.org/video/?426869-1/national-constitution-center-marks-freedom-day.
16. William Howard Taft, Liberty Under Law: An Interpretation of the Principles of Our Constitutional Government, in The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, vol. 8, ed. Francis Graham Lee (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2004), 5.
17. Ibid., 5–7.
18. Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2013), 26.
19. Mason, Taft: Chief Justice, 39.
20. Phil Edwards, “The Truth about William Howard Taft’s Bathtub,” TriviaHappy, June 25, 2014, https://triviahappy.com/articles/the-truth-about-william-howard-tafts-bathtub [https://perma.cc/RK72-BRQY]; Alexis Coe, “William Howard Taft Is Still Stuck in the Tub,” New York Times, Sept. 15, 2017.
21. Scott Bomboy, “Clearing up the William Howard Taft Bathtub Myth,” Constitution Daily, Feb. 6, 2013, http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2013/02/why-william-howard-taft-was-probably-never-stuck-in-his-bathtub/ [https://perma.cc/8BL2-S6HU].
22. Edwards, “Taft’s Bathtub.”
23. “Friends Amused by Taft Bath Story,” Enterprise, Nov. 3, 1909, in “Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers,” Library of Congress, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83025323/1909-11-03/ed-1/seq-7/.// [https://perma.cc/3GPA-9EAE].
24. “Taft Causes Hotel Deluge,” New York Times, June 19, 1915, 6.
25. Dan Steinberg, “Nats Will Name William Howard Taft New Racing President,” Washington Post, Jan. 25, 2013, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2013/01/25/nats-will-name-william-howard-taft-new-racing-president/?utm_term=.4f94251ef41e [https://perma.cc/R65U-ST8L].
26. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 20.
27. Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, vol. 2 (Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1986), 1072.
28. Andrew Dolan, The Taft Diet: How President Taft Lost 76 Pounds (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012), 19, Kindle.
29. Ibid., 41.
30. Ibid., 47.
31. Ibid., 48.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., 105–6.
34. John G. Sotos, MD, “Taft and Pickwick: Sleep Apnea in the White House,” CHEST 124, no. 3 (Sept. 2003): 1133, http://dx.doi.org/10.1378/chest.124.3.1133.
35. Ibid., 1135.
36. Ibid., 1138.
37. Ibid., 1137.
38. Lurie, Taft: Travails of a Progressive Conservative, 63 n.115.
39. William Howard Taft, “He Who Conquers Himself Is Greater than He Who Taketh a City,” Address at Union Religious Service in Fresno City Hall Park, Oct. 10, 1909, in The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, vol. 3, 264.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., 266.
42. Lurie, Taft: Travails of a Progressive Conservative, x–xi.
1: “A JUDICIAL TEMPERAMENT”
1. Lewis Alexander Leonard, Life of Alphonso Taft (New York: Hawke, 1920), 20.
2. “Republican Party Platform of 1856,” June 18, 1856, American Presidency Project, http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29619 [https://perma.cc/P5EU-677Z].
3. James Chace, 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, and Debs—The Election That Changed the Country (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2004), 23–24.
4. Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2013), 24.
5. Visit by author to William Howard Taft National Historic Site, Cincinnati, OH, July 7, 2017.
6. Minor v. Cincinnati Bd. of Education (Cincinnati Superior Ct. 1870), Opinion of Judge Storer, in The Bible in the Public Schools. Arguments in the Case of J. D. Minor Versus The Board of Education of the City of Cincinnati (Cincinnati: R. Clarke, 1870), 379.
7. Ibid., Opinion of Judge Taft, 390.
8. Abington School District v. Schempp, 374 U.S. 203 (1963).
9. Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, vol. 1 (Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1986), 45.
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p; 10. Jonathan Lurie, William Howard Taft: The Travails of a Progressive Conservative (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 5.
11. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 73–74.
12. Ibid., 22.
13. Ibid., 35.
14. Judith Icke Anderson, William Howard Taft: An Intimate History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 43; Leonard, Alphonso Taft, 29.
15. Bob Dellinger, Wrestling in the USA, National Wrestling Hall of Fame, http://nwhof.org/stillwater/resources-library/history/wrestling-in-the-usa/ [https://perma.cc/6CR9-EW3M].
16. “When Taft Was at Yale,” Index 18, no. 5 (Feb. 1, 1908): 6.
17. Ishbel Ross, An American Family: The Tafts (1678–1964) (Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood Press, 1977), 67.
18. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 47.
19. Goodwin, Bully Pulpit, 54–55.
20. Ibid., 55.
21. Ibid.
22. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 61.
23. Goodwin, Bully Pulpit, 56.
24. Ibid., 60.
25. Lurie, Taft: Travails of a Progressive Conservative, 15.
26. The Literary Club of Cincinnati 1849–1903: Constitution, Catalogue of Members, Etc. (Cincinnati: Ebbert & Richardson, 1903), 30.
27. Helen Herron Taft, Recollections of Full Years (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1914), 3, https://archive.org/details/recollectionsfu02taftgoog.
28. Ibid., 6.
29. Ibid.
30. Carl Sferrazza Anthony, Nellie Taft: The Unconventional First Lady of the Ragtime Era (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 32.
31. Goodwin, Bully Pulpit, 89.
32. Anthony, Nellie Taft, 58.
33. Ibid., 69.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid., 74–75.
36. Ibid., 75–76.
37. Lurie, Taft: Travails of a Progressive Conservative, 15.
38. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 82.
39. Helen Herron Taft, Recollections, 22.
40. Lurie, Taft: Travails of a Progressive Conservative, 23.
41. Thomas v. Cincinnati, N.O. & T.P. Railway Co., In re Phelan, 62 F. 803 (1894).
42. “George Mortimer Pullman,” Pullman State Historic Site, June 2016, http://www.pullman-museum.org/theMan/ [https://perma.cc/U2M8-RRHC].
43. Lurie, Taft: Travails of a Progressive Conservative, 31.
44. Ibid.
45. Letter from William Howard Taft to Helen H. Taft, July 6, 1894, in Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 128.
46. Lurie, Taft: Travails of a Progressive Conservative, 32.
47. Goodwin, Bully Pulpit, 215–16.
48. Lurie, Taft: Travails of a Progressive Conservative, 24.
49. Peri E. Arnold, Remaking the Presidency: Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson, 1901–1916 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), 75.
50. Goodwin, Bully Pulpit, 143–44.
51. Anderson, Taft: An Intimate History, 60.
52. Neal Kumar Katyal, “The Solicitor General and Confession of Error,” Fordham Law Review 81 (2013): 3027, 3030.
53. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 16.
54. Goodwin, Bully Pulpit, 145–46.
55. Ibid., 145.
56. Arnold, Remaking the Presidency, 76.
57. Ibid.
58. Goodwin, Bully Pulpit, 152.
59. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 109.
60. Ibid., 122.
61. “William Taft: Life Before the Presidency,” Miller Center, University of Virginia, http://millercenter.org/president/biography/taft-life-before-the-presidency [https://perma.cc/WZ45-FHRN].
62. Helen Herron Taft, Recollections, 30.
63. Anderson, Taft: An Intimate History, 64.
64. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 143.
65. 156 U.S. 1 (1895).
66. United States v. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co., 85 F. 271 (6th Cir. 1898).
67. Goodwin, Bully Pulpit, 218.
68. Addyston Pipe & Steel Co. v. United States, 175 U.S. 211 (1899). See also William Howard Taft, “Mr. Bryan’s Claim to the Roosevelt Policies,” Address in Sandusky, Ohio, Sept. 8, 1908, in The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, vol. 2, ed. David H. Burton (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001), 47.
69. Addyston, 175 U.S. at 212.
70. Taft, “Mr. Bryan’s Claim to the Roosevelt Policies,” 48.
71. William Howard Taft, “The Railroads and the Courts,” Address Delivered at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, Sept. 23, 1908, in The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, vol. 2, 91.
72. Ibid., 90.
2: “WE WANT TAFT”
1. Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft, vol. 1 (Norwalk, CT: Easton Press, 1986), 159.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., 160.
4. Ibid.
5. Judith Icke Anderson, William Howard Taft: An Intimate History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1981), 66.
6. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 161.
7. Peri E. Arnold, Remaking the Presidency: Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson, 1901–1916 (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009), 80.
8. Jonathan Lurie, William Howard Taft: The Travails of a Progressive Conservative (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 40.
9. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 161.
10. Helen Herron Taft, Recollections of Full Years (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1914), 35, https://archive.org/details/recollectionsfu02taftgoog.
11. Pringle, Taft, vol. 1, 165.
12. Ibid., 169. Arthur MacArthur’s son, General Douglas MacArthur, would display similar insolence to civilian authorities in the Far East, keeping President Harry Truman waiting before greeting the president when he arrived for a meeting on Wake Island during the Korean War.
13. Lurie, Taft: Travails of a Progressive Conservative, 46.
14. Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism (New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2013), 274.
15. Helen Herron Taft, Recollections, 212.
16. John W. Grant, “William Howard Taft on America and the Philippines: Equality, Natural Rights, and Imperialism,” in Joseph W. Postell and Johnathan O’Neill, Toward an American Conservatism: Constitutional Conservatism During the Progressive Era (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 135, Kindle.
17. Ibid., 137–38.
18. Ibid., 129–33.
19. Ibid., 131.
20. Ibid., 133.
21. William Howard Taft, “Inaugural Address as Civil Governor of the Philippines,” Address Before the Filipino People in Manila, July 4, 1901, in The Collected Works of William Howard Taft, vol. 1, ed. David H. Burton and A. E. Campbell (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2001), 75.
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