How long did taft serve

He stood about 6 feet tall and weighed pounds when he graduated from college. He struggled with his weight and may have weighed more than pounds as President. But he was at his college weight at the time of his death. His career goal was to be a Supreme Court justice. Attorney General, and distinguished judge; Taft himself was appointed a federal circuit judge at Taft is the only former U.

Solicitor General to become President. Taft was Solicitor General in the Benjamin Harrison administration, at the age of President McKinley brought Taft into the national political arena. McKinley asked Taft to head a commission overseeing the newly acquired Philippines Territory and he left his federal judgeship to become Governor-General. From childhood, William Howard Taft had a weight problem, a reaction perhaps to his parents' very high expectations for him.

At times during his presidency, he reached pounds. He followed his father's and half-brother's path to Yale University, graduating second in his class. He studied law at the University of Cincinnati and entered private practice while also holding several local appointive positions. At age 29, Taft married an ambitious, intellectual, and independent woman, Helen "Nellie" Herron, who pushed him to strive for more than a judicial career.

He held several key legal and judicial posts from to , including judge of the Cincinnati Superior Court, U. Circuit Court of Appeals. President William McKinley then asked Taft to serve as president of the commission to oversee the newly won Philippine Islands. Taft was disappointed, but pushed by his associates, including his wife, he took the job, with McKinley's promise of a future position on the Supreme Court upon his return.

Despite his initial hesitancy about it, Taft's service in the Philippines from to was fulfilling and largely successful. While there, he twice turned down President Roosevelt's offer of a Supreme Court appointment in order to finish his work. Becoming governor of the islands in , Taft abandoned the brutal and bloody tactics the U. By the time he left the islands to become Roosevelt's secretary of war in , Taft had constructed a functioning civil regime and pacified the islands.

At the same time, Taft fully subscribed to the view that Filipinos were not capable of self-rule. He believed that independence could only come to the undeveloped nation after a long period of U.

As secretary of war, Taft became Roosevelt's chief emissary and confidant, assisting him in the Portsmouth Peace negotiations, and in establishing a protectorate in Cuba. Roosevelt, having sworn upon his victory in that he would not seek another term, handpicked Taft to succeed him in The public joked that T. Taft promised to continue Roosevelt's reform program. But Roosevelt, and many of his allies, saw Taft's administration as abandoning progressivism.

The consequent animosity split the Republican Party in , sweeping Woodrow Wilson into office. Taft resigned the same day he won the Republican presidential nomination in ; he would serve the nation as its twenty-seventh President from to Taft ran again for the presidency on the Republican ticket in , though rival party member Theodore Roosevelt bolted for the Progressive Party, taking valuable support and votes with him.

Taft, and Roosevelt, would lose the election to Woodrow Wilson. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. Garfield Chester A. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D.