President Taft's Dedication to Upholding the Law

As we all know, President William Howard Taft was a pretty conservative reformist for such an avid supporter of President Roosevelt. Even though he had worked hard to preserve Roosevelt's progressive policies to an extent and showed agreement for them while he was the Secretary of War for Roosevelt, he ended up upholding his policies extremely differently than his predecessor. And this, I believe is a result of his connections to the Judicial System, which tie directly to his political career. According to the academic institution, the Miller Center for the University of Virginia, Taft grew up working towards getting an education in a law-related field as he was able to get graduate from Yale and then get a degree from the University of Cincinnati Law School. Additionally, he dedicated his early career towards working as a lawyer and then judge in Ohio, as he was extremely interested in the judicial system, and he wanted to eventually become a Supreme Court Justice. However, as well all know, he ended up becoming the Secretary for War for President Roosevelt due to the opportunity arising, which inevitably led his career towards the enforcement of the law, rather than its interpretations. Because of this, I think that when Taft was able to win the presidential election in 1908 with the support of Roosevelt, his judicial experiences and knowledge ended up interfering with his desire to be progressive, which inevitably made him a more conservative Republican. We can see this through his actions towards trying to strictly interpret trust laws, as according to another essay by the Miller Center for the University of Virginia, Taft ended up breaking up more than double the amount of trusts Roosevelt had tried to break because he was dedicated towards upholding this law. The way Taft saw it was that all large trusts needed to be seen as equal according to the law because that is the way he interpreted the loosely worded Sherman Antitrust Act, which caused him to destroy all of these large financial trusts even if they were considered beneficial to the people. Meanwhile, during Roosevelt's presidency, Roosevelt chose to only break up the trusts that he believed were negative and left those he believed were essential to the country's well-being, which really highlights the differences between the two politicians. Because Roosevelt had never been such an expert in law as he never pursued a career in the judicial system, he was much more focused on promoting his progressive ideals than interpreting the law, whereas Taft was strictly dedicated towards interpreting the Sherman Antitrust Act as well as many other laws in order to be able to carry them out fairly and constitutionally. Additionally, as the essay describes, his judicial background and influences ended up directly affecting his political decisions as a whole, as he was against any law weakening the power of the courts or judiciary. This is why when Arizona and New Mexico went through the process of becoming recognized states, he chose to veto this action, as both of these territories had constitutions promoting the recall of judges, making it clear that he mainly did this because of his biases towards the Judicial System. Also, it is clear that Taft's entire political career was influenced by his experiences in law-related fields, as immediately after his presidency ended, he began to pursue a career in becoming a law professor, which led him to eventually be appointed as a justice for the US Supreme Court. So in closure, President Taft's decisions were strongly influenced by his dedication towards the Judicial System rather than his desire to promote progressivism under Roosevelt's policies, which is why he ended up carrying out his laws through his very strict interpretations of them.