Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-09-24
PRESIDENT JACKSON AND A THIRD
TERN

PRESIDENT JACKSON AND A THIRD
TERN.
Senator BrownloW's recent citation
of the Hero of the Hermitage in favor
of third term for Gen. Grant, is apt
to raise the bile of old Tennesseeans.
The well-known record is that Andrew
Jackson was so strenuous an advocate
of the one-term policy that he argued
for it in each of his eight annual mes
sages to Congress, emphasizing his
views the more after his own re- election.
In his firsC message to Congress, De-
cember, 1929, after dwelling upon the
inconvenience of that provision of our
Constitution which in certain contin-
geneies leaves the choice of the Presi-
dent to the House of Representatives,
he proceeds:
81 would therefore recommend such
an amendment of the Constitution as
may remove all intermediate agency In
the election of the President and Vice
President. The mode may be SO regu-
lated as to preserve to each State its
present relative weight in the election;
and a failure in the first attempt may
be provided for by combining the second
choice between the two highest candi-
dates. In connection with such an
amendment Il lCOuld seem advisable to
limit the service of the Chief Magistrate
to a single term Of either tour or sic
gears"
1t viii be noticed that the mode of
Presidential election here advocated is
almost identical with that suggested
by ex-President johnson more recently.
The limitation to a single term Is dis
tinct. The suggestion of six years
term, in place of four, was actually
carried out in the Confederate Consti-
tuition. a -a
In each succeeding annual message
Gen. jackson repeated his advocacy of
the one-term idea, treating it more
lengthily than ever in his last document
TO the opening Congress of 1885.
Though these repeated arguments re-
suited In no organic action, he succeed
ed in impressing his views 50 thoroughly
on his party and country that the De-
mOeracy never after reelected any of
it's champions. 1t remained for the
Republican party, amid the throes of
civil war, TO re-erect the bad precedent
shattered by the logic of Tennessec's
warrior-statesman. And now it re-
mains for the same party to threaten
the violation Of all the precedents and
traditions of hundred years by tame
ly permitting if not directly encourag-
ing Grants aspirations 70 a third term.
HEARKEN to the siran voice of the
Narragansett, in his ssgenade speech
Tuesday night:
Ny countrymen, wren 1t comes TO
pass that the ballot boEsis not permit
Ted to express the seEtiment Of the
people of the country-to express pub
Tic oPinion-the ballot being regulated
by law, then there is an end of popular,
representative government. The forms
may linger, ike the 1ank of an old,
woTm-eaten tree that Stands year after
year, because no storm fomes-becausc
no blow assails it. but when the I'M
toward blow does fall, or when it is
struck by an uncommon blast, it falls,
and great is the fall thereof %
This generation of Tenncsseeans
have hardly forgotten how the ballot
box was mot permitted to express the
sentiment Of the people" IN this State
n few years ago. When Maynard and
his minions heldsway .nine-tenths of the
taxpayers were disfranchised, while
extravaganza and fraud fastened mil
lions Of debt upon their property. We
need but look at other Southern Stltes
to see that such is still the animus of
Radicalism wherever it rules. If Mr..
Maynard has such poetic reverence for
the ballot box, and does not wish it to
fall like a wolm-eaten tree, let him raise
his voice to It's highest pitch against
the Louisiana infamy.