President william taft biography

William Howard Taft faced the difficult task as President of living up to the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt.

President william taft biography

Taft so disappointed his predecessor, former mentor, and friend, that Roosevelt opposed his renomination in and bolted from the Republican Party to form his own "Bull-Moose" party, creating an opening for Democrat Woodrow Wilson in the presidential election.

Taft's lifelong ambition was to serve as Chief Justice of the United States, to which he was appointed after leaving the presidency. He remains the only man in American history to have gained the highest executive and judicial positions.

Meeting Expectations

Taft, born in , spent his boyhood in Cincinnati, Ohio, trying to live up to the high expectations of his demanding parents, especially his father, Alphonso Taft.

Alphonso Taft was a distinguished Cincinnati attorney and a prominent Republican who served as secretary of war and then attorney general under President Ulysses Grant, and wa