Chief Justice William Howard Taft
Today’s Justice of the Day is: WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT. Chief Justice Taft was born on this day, September 15, in 1857.
Chief Justice Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the son of one of the state’s most prominent families. He attended Yale College in Connecticut (earning a B.A. in 1878), the state from which he would later be appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States. Chief Justice Taft went on to study at Cincinnati Law School (today called the University of Cincinnati College of Law) in his home town, which he graduated from with an LL.B. in 1880.
The year after his graduation, Chief Justice Taft became an Assistant Prosecutor in Hamilton County, Ohio (the county Cincinnati is located in). During this time, he also served as Collector of Internal Revenue for Cincinnati in 1882. In 1883, Chief Justice Taft left his position as an assistant prosecutor to enter private practice in his home town, and then began a two-year term as Assistant County Solicitor for Hamilton County in 1885. He continued working as a private attorney until 1887, when he became a Judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati. Chief Justice Taft left that office upon becoming Solicitor General of the United States in 1890, before starting service as a Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit (which included his home state) in 1892. He remained in that office until 1900, when he became President of the U.S. Philippine Commission. During his time at the Sixth Circuit, Chief Justice Taft also briefly served as a Professor and Dean at the University of Cincinnati. He left the U.S. Philippine Commission in 1901, immediately after which he started a three-year term as Civil Governor of the Philippine Islands (today called the Philippines). Chief Justice Taft served as Secretary of War from 1904 until 1908, the year he was elected President of the United States. He assumed office the following year, serving one four-year term, after which he began serving as the Kent Professor of Law at his undergraduate alma mater’s law school, where he remained until his appointment to the SCUS.
Chief Justice Taft was nominated by President Warren G. Harding on June 30, 1921, to a seat vacated by Chief Justice Edward Douglass White. He was confirmed by the United States Senate that day, and also received his commission then. Chief Justice Taft took the Judicial Oath to officially become Chief Justice of the United States on July 11, and his service was terminated on February 3, 1930, due to his resignation.
Chief Justice Taft was a fairly conservative, business-friendly politician as President, and he largely remained in that mold after becoming the Chief Justice (a job he apparently always wanted, far more than he ever wanted to be in the Oval Office). He even held afternoon tea at his home on weekends with other conservative Members of the SCUS so that they could strategize. Chief Justice Taft is best remembered within the SCUS itself for his successful push to finally secure a permanent home for the Court; though he did not live to see it open, the Supreme Court Building has worked out marvelously, and the SCUS still resides in it to this day.