Why Roosevelt will not Stand for Re-Election.

Northland Age, Volume IV, Issue 47, 13 July 1908, Page 3

Why Roosevelt will not Stand for Re-Election.

The Force of a Great Precedent. President Roosevelt would certainly have stood for reelection, and would have swept the polls, but for the superstition —for it is hardly less in the United States—against any President having a third term at White nouse. What is the origin of this superstition ? The “ North American Review” gives the following explanation ; A proposal made in the Philadelphia Convention of 1787 to limit the Presidential term to seven years but to make a President ineligible for a second term, was rejected, and, consequently, Washington, the Chief Magistrate was at liberty to serve as many terms as public desire and his own judgment might dictate. Yet, contemplating retirement even toward the close of his first term, he wrote to Madison that “ the spirit of the Government may render a rotation in the elective offices of it more congenial with the ideas of liberty and safety.” Washington's Example. Having consented to accept a second term because of the “ perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations,” he rejoiced four years later that the condition of the Republic no longer rendered “ the pursuit of inclination incompatible with the sentiment of duty or propriety.” In 1807 President Jefferson directed attention to the danger lest, “if some termination to the services of the Chief Magistrate be not by the Constitution, or supplied by practice, this office, nominally for years, will, in fact, become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance,” Jefferson’s determination to avert this menace, and to observe the “sound precedent of an illustrious predecessor,” was praised in the press and at public meetings; and rotation in the Presidential office was declared to be the bulwark of freedom.

Fortunate was it for Jackson’s reputation that he did not accept office for a third term, for, within a few months after he left the White House, the appalling panic of 1837 broke out, and his favourite for the succession to himself, Yan Huron was defeated ensily in 1840, when he ran for the second term, because he was looked upon as personifying Jackson’s financial policy, which had come to be detested.

The Force of Tradition. So firmly planted became the antagonism to Presidential selfsuccession that the six elected Presidents who followed Jackson served but one term each or less, and Lincoln was the first in a quarter of a century to be chosen for a second term. For Grant, also, who, at the head of great armies, had won victory after victory, and who had received the principal share of credit for the restoration of the Union, a second term was secured, but a recognition of the vastness of his services could not prevent a revival of the old dread of a third term long before his second drew to a close. Soon after Grant’s second election, the cry of “ Ccesarism ” was raised, and continued to be heard until “No Third Term ” became a shibboleth, so that Grant’s name was not even presented to the Republican Convention of 1870. When, however, Grant returned from a three years’ tour of the world, he was greeted with an outburst of popular enthusiasm which some of his former lieutenants mistook for a desire to have him returned to the Presidential chair. The result is well known. In the Republican National Convention of 1880 Grant never got more than 318 votes, while 379 were necessary for a choice. Then and there was it demonstrated that there is to be no third term for an American President, even if it be not consecutive.