When Taft saved the Constitution from Teddy Roosevelt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In the course of a column on Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz's victory in Texas for the Republican senate nomination, George Will recounts a time one hundred\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/08\/when-taft-saved-the-constitution-from-teddy-roosevelt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"When Taft saved the Constitution from Teddy Roosevelt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In the course of a column on Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz's victory in Texas for the Republican senate nomination, George Will recounts a time one hundred\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/08\/when-taft-saved-the-constitution-from-teddy-roosevelt\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Cranach\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/cranachblog\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-08-03T09:45:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Gene Veith\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/08\/when-taft-saved-the-constitution-from-teddy-roosevelt\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/08\/when-taft-saved-the-constitution-from-teddy-roosevelt\/\",\"name\":\"When Taft saved the Constitution from Teddy Roosevelt\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-08-03T09:45:19+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2012-08-03T09:45:19+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\"},\"description\":\"In the course of a column on Tea Party candidate Ted Cruz's victory in Texas for the Republican senate nomination, George Will recounts a time one hundred\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/08\/when-taft-saved-the-constitution-from-teddy-roosevelt\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/08\/when-taft-saved-the-constitution-from-teddy-roosevelt\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/08\/when-taft-saved-the-constitution-from-teddy-roosevelt\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"When Taft saved the Constitution from Teddy Roosevelt\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/\",\"name\":\"Cranach\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/f9ca8670bcc51908a78994c0484dbfa1\",\"name\":\"Gene Veith\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/054d79faea5d476edd8f99e5f14fb17f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Gene Veith\"},\"description\":\"Gene Edward Veith, Jr. is a writer and retired literature professor, serving as Provost Emeritus at Patrick Henry College. 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After leaving the presidency in 1909, TR went haywire. He had always chafed under constitutional restraints, but he had remained a Hamiltonian, construing the Constitution expansively but respectfully. By 1912, however, he had become what the Democratic nominee, Woodrow Wilson, was \u2014 an anti-Madisonian. Both thought the Constitution, the enumeration and separation of powers, intolerably crippled government.<\/p>\n

Espousing unconstrained majoritarianism, TR disdained James Madison\u2019s belief that the ultimate danger is wherever ultimate power resides, which in a democracy is with the majority. He endorsed the recall of state judicial decisions and by September 1912 favored the power to recall all public officials, including the president.<\/p>\n

\nTR\u2019s anti-constitutional excesses moved two political heroes to subordinate personal affection to the public interest. New York Sen. Elihu Root had served TR as secretary of war and secretary of state, and he was Roosevelt\u2019s first choice to succeed him in 1908. Massachusetts Sen. Henry Cabot Lodge had long been one of TR\u2019s closest friends. Both sided with Taft.\n

As the Hudson Institute\u2019s William Schambra says (in \u201cThe Saviors of the Constitution,\u201d National Affairs, Winter 2012, and elsewhere), by their \u201clonely, principled\u201d stand, Root and Lodge, along with Taft, \u201cdenied TR the powerful electoral machinery of the Republican Party, which would almost surely have elected him, and then been turned to securing sweeping alterations\u201d of the Constitution.<\/p>\n

Wilson won with 41.8 percent of the vote (to TR\u2019s 27.4 percent). Taft won 23.2 percent, carrying only Vermont and Utah, but achieved something far grander than a second term: the preservation of the GOP as an intellectual counterbalance to the Democrats\u2019 thorough embrace of progressivism and the \u201cliving\u201d \u2014 actually, disappearing \u2014 Constitution.<\/p>\n

via George Will: Texas\u2019s Ted Cruz gives tea party a Madisonian flair \u2013 The Washington Post<\/a>.<\/p><\/div>\n<\/blockquote><\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"