Cabinet taffeta

William Howard Taft, 27th President of the United States

William Howard Taft succeeded his fellow Republican party friend Theodore Roosevelt as President of the United States in March 1909 . After only one term in office, however, he had to leave the White House again, because in addition to the Democrat Woodrow Wilson , his predecessor Roosevelt ran in the 1912 presidential election and the Republican electorate was therefore divided. Both received more electors in Electoral College than Taft.

During Taft's four-year presidency there were very few changes in his cabinet ; only Secretary of War Dickinson and Secretary of the Interior Ballinger left office prematurely. However, Taft lost his Vice President James S. Sherman , who died in October 1912, a week before the presidential election. The constitution did not allow the appointment of a successor at this point in time.

Taft, who himself had served as Secretary of War in Roosevelt's cabinet , appointed three ministers who had also served under his predecessor to his cabinet. James Wilson remained Minister of Agriculture for another four years, George von Lengerke Meyer moved from the Post Office to the Navy Department and former Attorney General Philander C. Knox took over the management of the State Department .

The Cabinet

Department / Office	Official	Period	image
President of the United States	William Howard Taft	1909-1913
Vice President of the United States	James Schoolcraft Sherman	1909-1912
	vacant	1912-1913
United States Secretary of State	Philander Chase Knox	1909-1913
United States Secretary of the Treasury	Franklin MacVeagh	1909-1913
United States Secretary of War	Jacob McGavock Dickinson	1909-1911
	Henry Lewis Stimson	1911-1913
United States Secretary of the Navy	George von Lengerke Meyer	1909-1913
United States Attorney General	George Woodward Wickersham	1909-1913
United States Postal Secretary	Frank Harris Hitchcock	1909-1913
United States Secretary of the Interior	Richard Achilles Ballinger	1909-1911
	Walter Lowrie Fisher	1911-1913
United States Secretary of Agriculture	James Wilson	1909-1913
United States Secretary of Commerce and Labor	Charles Nagel	1909-1913