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This article discusses William Howard Taft's theory of presidential leadership. Often seen as embodying a passive or weak conception of the presidency and dismissed as anachronistic, the author argues that Taft's theory merits a second look. First, through analysis of Taft's presidential actions and academic writings, the author shows that his theory is far more nuanced and substantial than traditional accounts allow. Taft's theory is best characterized as a "party agency" Whig theory of the presidency because of its simultaneous concern with popular democracy (via political parties) and presidential moderation. Second, the author argues that Taft's theory of the presidency is rooted in nineteenth-century Whig and Republican ideas of presidential leadership, which, appropriately understood, embody most of the same principles and values. Thus was Taft in many ways a conservator of a nineteenth-century notion of presidential leadership. Finally, the author concludes that Taft's Whiggish theory of the presidency (as well as the nineteenth-century Whig/Republican theory of the presidency) has much to contribute to contemporary debates on presidential leadership.
Keywords: William Howard Taft; presidency; presidential leadership; Whigs; political parties
William Howard Taft, twenty-seventh president of the United States, is primarily remembered as an insignificant leader serving between far more interesting presidents, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. But Taft is also remembered as offering a rather different understanding of presidential leadership than these two presidents as well; particularly, Taft's so-called "Whig" (or "strict constructionist" or "literalist") view of the presidency is often counterpoised to Roosevelt's "stewardship" theory. For a variety of reasons, Taft's theory of the presidency largely has been relegated to the ash heap of history, seen as anachronistic if not downright reactionary and deleterious.
This article seeks to revise the traditional understanding of Taft's theory of presidential leadership and also the conventional understanding of Whig or Whiggish leadership in general. First, I reexamine Taft's ideas on presidential leadership through an analysis of both his presidential actions and his postpresidential academic writings, particularly his 1925 book Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers. Taft's theory of presidential leadership is often labeled "apolitical," "weak," and "passive," but I argue that his theory is far more subtle and substantial, embodying a conception of leadership that prizes democratic presidential action but within a balanced political context. Next, I show...