Twenty-seventh President William Howard Taft was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on September 15, 1857. His father was a judge and his son William was an excellent student. He entered Yale College in 1874 and graduated four years later. He returned to Cincinnati and became a successful lawyer. In 1881 he was appointed assistant prosecutor in a county court. He went on to become an official in the Bureau of the Internal Revenue Service. He did not like that job and resigned. He married Helen Herron in 1886: they had three children. In 1887 he was named a judge on the Ohio Superior Court. In 1890, President Benjamin Harrison offered Taft the post of solicitor General of the United States, the second largest job of the Department of Justice. In 1892 he resigned to become a federal circuit judge. President William McKinley picked Taft to become head of a special commission to oversee the government of the Philippine Islands. In 1904 President Roosevelt appointed Taft Secretary of War. Taft was nominated for President by the Republican Party and won. He helped establish the 16th Amendment to the Constitution, which allows Congress to collect income tax. He served on term. In the next election he was opposed by Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. He retired to Yale University where he was a professor of constitutional law until he was appointed Chief Justice of the United States by President Harding in 1921. His administrative work as a Supreme Court justice is considered his greatest contribution to public service. He retired in 1930 due to poor health and died the same year on March 8 in Washington D.C. Taft was President from 1909-13 and Vice President was James Sherman.