Valentine’s Day means candy, flowers and a lavish dinner to celebrate Arizona’s 111th anniversary of becoming the 48th state in the Commonwealth.

what happened: On this day in 1912, President William Howard Taft signed an executive order. Gained statehood to Arizona.

• Yes, but: There were some bumps along the way.

conspiracy: Taft rejected a resolution to add Arizona and New Mexico to states on August 15, 1911. He did this because he opposed a provision in the Arizona Constitution that allowed judicial summons elections.

• The president, a former judge, believed the clause undermined the independence of the judiciary.
• Voters removed that provision from the state constitution, and Taft signed it into Arizona law the following year on Valentine’s Day.
• Arizona wanted to have Statehood Day on February 12, as it was Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, but Taft was traveling to New York, which delayed the signing by two days.

But, but, but: Arizona voters simply reinserted the recall clause into their constitution in that November election.

What he said: Taft I have written The Judiciary Recall Provision states that “the effects are very harmful, they are very likely to destroy the independence of the judiciary, to expose the rights of individuals to the possibility of tyranny by the popular majority, and therefore to the judiciary very much.” He had to reject the ’cause of free government’ that seemed harmful.

Zoom in: Ironically, the clause that angered Taft used only once since it was implemented.

• Pinal County voters recalled Superior Court Judge Stephen Abbey in 1924.

• Opponents claimed he carried a loaded gun under his robe and frequently called county officials to court to denounce him.

Line spacing: Most of present-day Arizona, along with most of the rest of the American Southwest, became a territory of the United States in 1848 after being taken from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

• The southern part of the state south of the Gila River, including Tucson and Yuma, was part of Mexico until the United States acquired it through the Gadsden Purchase in 1854.
• Arizona was originally part of the New Mexico Territory until Congress separated the latter two states in 1863.
• Congress passed the Permit Act in 1906 allowing the territories of Arizona, New Mexico and Oklahoma to form state governments, and Arizonas approved the state constitution in 1910.