WHAT WASHINGTON THOUGHT OF A THIRD TERM. 323 the proposal to construe narrowly the grants of power, made to the Federal Government in the Constitution, seemed to them to be a niggardly withholding of confidence, tending to belittle and degrade the noble structure they had just erected at such cost. In the absence of proofs, Washington is not to be presumed to have objected on principle to a third term, any more than to a second term. He would naturally favor both. The dogmas of strict construction of the Federal Constitution, and of the reserved rights of States, which took so strong a hold upon public opinion a few years later, were no part of his philosophy. Fortunately proofs are not lacking to show just how he felt about the' matter. From 1832 to 1864, — from Jackson to Lincoln, — no President had been elected to fill a second term, and VanBuren’s was the only instance among the one-term Presidents where the candidacy for a second term had been accepted. What happened at the end of Lincoln’s first term is familiar history. Had he survived his second term, and had the reconstruction problem been better handled, as it certainly would, had he survived, have been differently handled, it is highly probable that Lincoln would have been before the country as a third-term candidate in 1868, and if chosen he would have entered on a third consecutive term. The third-term question took a practical form, but a new one, a few years later. In 1880, Grant had been twice President, but for four years succeeding his two consecutive terms he had been out of office. He desired another term. Had he obtained it, that would not have been a third consecutive term, as in Washington’s case or in Lincoln’s case. He did not obtain it. And an element was injected into the discussion of his wish for another term which, but for the existence of other grounds making it unadvisable to renominate him, would not have been suffered to pass unchallenged as it did. It was generally assumed in that campaign that Washington objected as a matter of principle to a third term in the Presidency. It is the object of this paper to show, from Washington’s recorded words, — from his no less significant silence,— and from other accepted facts, that he entertained no such feeling.
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