326 WHAT WASHINGTON THOUGHT OF A THIRD TERM. easy to see why the reasoning in favor of rotation does not apply to a second term as well as to succeeding terms,— then we must be prepared to find him abandoning in this one instance not only the uniform traditions of his party, but also the record he had himself made in the Convention over which he presided. On the twenty-sixth of July, 1787, he had recorded his vote, the Convention being in committee of the whole, against a seven years’ term with a one-term limit, when that proposition was favored by the majority, and he was voted down. On the twenty-eighth of April, 1788, when the matter was still fresh in his mind and the Constitution was not yet accepted by the people, he had written to his close friend Lafayette these significant words (Sparks, vol. ix, p. 358) : "There are other points in which opinions would be more likely to vary. As, for instance, on the ineligibility of the same person for president, after he should have served a certain course of years. Guarded so effectually as the proposed Constitution is, in respect to the prevention of bribery and undue influence in the choice of president, I confess I, differ widely myself from Mr. Jefferson and you, as to the expediency or necessity of rotation in that appointment. The matter was fairly discussed in the Convention, and to my full conviction. . . . Under an extended view of this part of the subject, I can see no propriety in precluding ourselves from the services of any man, who, on some great emergency, shall be deemed universally most capable of serving the public.” The view that official employment is to be regarded primarily as a means of livelihood,— as an industrial career, to be thrown open without preference and with equal facilities to all, and that a fair distribution of its profits is the first consideration, is a modern one. It is the growth of new conditions and necessities unlooked for in Washington’s time, and is not even now applied to the higher offices of government. No administration can discharge its highest functions which yields much deference to it. How far Washington was able, in his day of small things, to look upon the personnel of his administration from the standpoint of the soldier surrounded
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