WHAT WASHINGTON THOUGHT OF A THIRD TERM. 337 of fitness, at once calling into play the qualities required, and at the same time demonstrating to the people the presence of them where they exist,— and if it be true that the demand for rotation in that office has been not only coincident in time with the modern system of dispensing patronage, but is a consequence of that system which makes a fair distribution of the minor offices contingent on a frequent change in the chief magistracy,— then it would seem to follow that, if we are ever to succeed in divorcing the function of dispensing patronage from the other functions of the Presidency, we may in time get back to the pristine purity of our golden prime. Presidents may then be able to give over the study of petty politics, and devote themselves to those larger considerations incident to the office. It would be a step towards bringing the office up to the dignified level of the grand strategy of the world’s diplomacy and statecraft, should Presidents ever be able to ignore the claims of letter-carriers and tide-waiters and Indian contracts and light-houses and mail routes, and to give their minds unvexed to continental thinking. When, if ever, that halcyon day shall come, the people may recover a lost liberty of which they have been barred by tradition if not by reason,—the liberty of choosing for President their foremost citizen, be he the incumbent or some other. " I can see no propriety,” wrote Washington to Lafayette, "in precluding ourselves from the services of any man, who, on some great emergency, shall be deemed universally most capable of serving the public.” It is patronage, —it is the possible corrupt use of patronage by the incumbent from anxiety to secure his re-election, that has made three successive terms more dangerous than two, and two more dangerous than one. For Washington and his coevals, neither three terms nor two had any terrors. It is patronage, it is the distribution of that official employment which is below the grade of the offices Washington told Pickering he should keep, and which every President will be forever bound to keep, filled with persons in active sympathy with himself, — it is this function of distributing patronage, this office-peddling element, which has belittled our Chief Magistracy, and, by limiting their choice, has HIST. COLL. VOL. XXXVII 22
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