![]() ![]() Taft “stood firmly by the Constitution, as usual,” Nellie recalled with bemused exasperation, “and eventually I had to submit the question for arbitration to President Roosevelt, who agreed with me that I was a private citizen and had a perfect right to accept the gift.” After Taft became president, she hung the tapestry in the state dining room of the White House, where she took pleasure in watching guests attempt in vain to decipher its meaning.2 Taft then tried to persuade her husband, a former judge, that she was not an official of the United States government and therefore was not bound by the foreign emoluments clause of the Constitution. ![]() Nellie decided she wanted to keep the tapestry after all.1 ![]() “I’m going to present it to the Smithsonian Institute anyway, because you know, my dear, it is against the Constitution for an official in the United States government to accept any kind of favours from foreign courts.” Nellie had often “met the Constitution face to face,” she recalled, but had previously accepted “its decrees with what I had hoped was patriotic resignation.” This time, however, she changed her mind. When Taft brought the gift home, Nellie protested that it was too large to be of use. Stopping off at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, Taft received from the empress of Japan an elaborate tapestry for his wife, Nellie, a copy from the Gobelin original, showing the meeting of Columbus and Isabella. In 1905, as secretary of war, William Howard Taft set out on a diplomatic mission to the Far East. Judicial President and Presidential Chief Justice ![]()
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