Political Life
He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1856, and also that year made an unsuccessful run for the United States House of Representatives against George H. Pendleton. He was a judge of the Superior Court of Cincinnati from 1866 to 1872 when he resigned to practise law with two of his sons. He was the first president of the Cincinnati Bar Association, serving in 1872. At a famous 1874 Taft family reunion at Elmshade, at Uxbridge, Mass., Alphonso delivered an impassioned speech on his family history and his father's origins in this community, as recorded in his biography.
After he left office as Attorney General in 1877 he returned to the practice of law. He was again an unsuccessful candidate for Governor of Ohio in 1879, this time against Charles Foster. Taft was ambassador to Austria-Hungary from 1882 to 1884, and to Imperial Russia from 1884 to 1885.
Read more about this topic: Alphonso Taft
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