Jeff Rosen has been guest-blogging on The Volokh Conspiracy, presenting parts of his new book, William Howard Taft, a biography of the late President. From what I’ve read so far, WHT was a Constitutional scholar who, as President, used that knowledge to guide himself with regards to what actions he could and could not take as President. I found this bit on a potential dustup between the United States and Mexico in 1911 both interesting and revealing:
But although [Mexican] President Diaz expected an invasion, Taft carefully instructed his commanders not to cross the Mexican border, believing that the President lacked the constitutional authority to declare war without Congressional approval. In the end, Congress refused to authorize an invasion and Taft kept the troops waiting at the border as a deterrent, resisting populist cries for war.
In acting with constitutional restraint at the Mexican border, Taft was putting the national interest above his partisan interests. When he read that four Americans had been killed in Mexico, his wife asked if there would be war. Taft replied, “I only know that I am going to do everything in my power to prevent one. Already there is a movement in the Grand Old Party” — he intoned the words sarcastically — “to utilize this trouble for party ends…. I am afraid I am a constant disappointment to my party. The fact of the matter is, the longer I am President the less of a party man I seem to become…. [I]t seems to me to be impossible to be a strict party man and serve the whole country impartially.”
Taft’s legalistic precision at the border evoked our greatest constitutionally minded president, Abraham Lincoln. In 1846, President James K. Polk sent troops to the Mexican border, in response to what he claimed was a Mexican invasion. Lincoln — elected later year as a young Whig Congressman — would introduce his famous “spot resolutions,” demanding that Polk identify the precise spot where blood had been shed, to establish it was on U.S. soil. (This earned him the nickname “Spotty Lincoln.”)
It’s a reminder that both party and citizens pay scant attention to the restrictions placed on us by the Constitution and Laws, no matter what the era. That’s why it’s important that we elect law-respecting citizens to all such positions, as they are the first and most important gate-keepers for such matters; laws are only as good as the people who are in charge of enforcing them.
I think Taft’s election to the office of the President forced him to look beyond his Party’s interests, because it became apparent the disasters which awaited the United States if he followed the self-centered interests of the Party. Would that Trump could learn such a lesson, eh?
