Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1927-03-27
''Third Term as a 1923 Issue

The vote February 1. 1913, while Chief Justice
Taft still President and shortly before
Woodrow Wilson entered the White House.
stood AZ ayes to % noes, or one vote more
than the two-thirds vote necessary to adopt
resolution proposing constitutional amend
ment.
AT that time the Senate was in control Of
the Republicans, although the Democrats in
the previous election had won the House.
Nothing done about the resolution in the
House. The resolution then adopted by the
Senate would have made ineligible for election
a Vice President who had served in the White
House President because Of the death or
disability of the President. The Democratic
platform which Woodrow Wilson stood for
election in 1912 pledged the party to the single
term principle. But little was heard of this
plank, except from Republican threats, after
Mr. Wilson had been chosen President.
The question of re-eigibilty of the Presi-
dent was discussed at great length in the
constitutional convention of 1887. Proposals
were made in the convention that a President
should be ineligible for a second time. Wash
ington was against the limitation the eligi-
bility of a President for reelection. He, like
others in the convention, believed that the
prohibition of second or third term might
exclude from the presidential Office the person
who best fitted to be President.
X x X X
greatly disappointed at the failure of the CON
stitutonal convention to include in the basic
law of the land some provision limiting the
number of terms which a President might
have. Jefferson was then American Minister
to France. He wrote to Washington on the
subject of the perpetual re-eligibility of the
President
This, I fear" said jefferson, will make
office for life. I much an enemy Of
monarchy before 1 came to Europe. am ten
thousand times more since l have seen what
they are" He added he hoped that soon an
amendment to the Constitution would deal with
this matter.
But Washington took contrary view in
letter written about the same time to Lafayette
in which he said:
Il confess ! differ widely myself from Mr.
Jefferson and to the necessity or expediency
Of rotation In that department. There cannot,
in my judgment, be the least danger that the
President will by any practicable intrigue be
able to continue himself one moment in office
much less perpetuate himself in it. /
can see no propriety in precluding ourselves
from the services Of any man who in some
great emergency shall be deemed universally
most capable OF serving the public"
X X X *
There have been two notable efforts for
more than two terms of Office as President in
this country, one in which President Grant
figured and the other President Roosevelt
Half way through the second term of President
Grant it became currently rumored that he
would seek to succeed himself. The rumor
caused unfavorable comment both among the
Republicans and the Democrats. The RepubIi.
can State convention Of Pennsylvania put
through a resolution opposing the election of
any man to a third term as President
But the third-term boom of Grant was
demolished effectively by the adoption by the