July 11, 1921 – William Howard Taft Sworn in as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court

On this day in history, William Howard Taft became the only person to serve as both U.S. President and Supreme Court Chief Justice.

Taft was the 27th President of the United States (1909–1913). Before becoming President, Taft served on the Superior Court of Cincinnati, as Solicitor General of the United States, and as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. He also was appointed as Governor-General of the Philippines by President William McKinley and as Secretary of War by President Theodore Roosevelt.

Riding a wave of popular support for fellow Republican Roosevelt, Taft won his 1908 bid for the presidency but was defeated after one term.

After leaving office, Taft spent his time in academia, arbitration, and the pursuit of world peace through his self-founded League to Enforce Peace. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft Chief Justice of the United States. This, not the presidency, was Taft’s dream job. As Smithsonian Magazine reports, he said in a 1911 speech:

I love judges, and I love courts. They are my ideals that typify on earth what we shall meet hereafter in heaven under a just God.”

Justice Felix Frankfurter observed: “He loathed being president, and being chief justice was all happiness for him.” Frankfurter found the Taft court’s hostility to social-reform legislation frustrating, however.

Erick Trickey, writing for Smithsonian Magazine, observed that as chief justice, Taft expanded federal power more than he did during his cautious term in the White House. Taft the president had embraced a narrow view of his own powers, hesitating to act if the law or Constitution didn’t give him explicit permission. But in the most important and lasting opinion he wrote as chief justice, in Myers vs. U.S. (272 U.S. 52, 1926) he upheld the president’s power to dismiss federal officials without the Senate’s approval.

Taft served in this capacity until shortly before his death in 1930.