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Show THE CITIZEN 7 THE THIRD TERM of the peculiar phases of the campaign is the silence of Mr. Wilson on a third term; The only parallel is furnished by the atti- ONE tude which 1874. 0 General Grant, took in In that year some of the news- papers and many of his friends who exercised an influence on public opinion began to agitate for his renomination. Soon the agitation grew to such proportions that it was generally believed he must take formal notice of it, but he continued to maintain silence and there was no indication from any authoritative quarter that a third nomination would be disagreeable to him. The very fact that Mr. Wilson has not followed the example of the fathers by refusing to consider a third term is a warning to the American people of the peril that lies in electing a president to more than two consecutive terms. It might easily befall that a president who had served capably for two terms would be incapacitated on account of ill health or age early in his third term. In a letter to a' friend, J. Taylor, on January 6, 1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote: The danger is that the indulgence and attachments of the people will keep a man in the chair after he becomes a dotard, that through life shall become habitual, and election for life follow that. General Washington set the example of retirement after eight voluntary years. I shall follow it. And a few more precedents will oppose the obstacle of habit to anyone after a while who shall endeavor to extend his term. Perhaps it may beget a dispo-- sition to establish it by an amend- ment to the constitution. I believe I am doing right, therefore, in pursuing my principle. I had determined to declare my intention, but I have cofc sented to be silent on the opinion of friends, who think it best not to put a continuance out of my power in defiance of all circumstances. There is, however, but one circumstance which could engage my acquiescence in such a division election, about a successor as might bring in a monarchist. But that circumstance is ns . ! an-oth- er to-wi- t, ' impossible. . . That the fathers did not interdict a third term by a provision of the constitutions is testimony that both sides of the question were ably presented in the great debate at the contention. The arguments of those who favored more than one or two terms would have carried conviction if applied to any office other than the presidency, for these arguments related mostly to the element of increasing efficiency as the result of experience in office. Wilson long ago yielded MR.sent to this argument, and casionally great, is not much above routine. Most of the time it is mere administration, mere obedience of directions from masters of policy, the standing committees. Except in so far as his power of veto constitutes him a part of the legislature, the president might not inconveniently be a tion of a monarchy. Such a good friend of America as the Marquis de Lafayette was deeply disappointed that the presidential term had not been fixed at six or seven years and the incumbent declared ineligible for permanent officer, the first official of a carefully graded, and impartially system, through regulated whose sure series of merit promotions the youngest clerk might rise even to the chief magistracy. In another place we read: Administration is something that To renounce a third term when there is small likelihood of renomination cannot be called heroic. It was ascribed to George Washington as a lofty act that he laid aside his office at a time when he was assured of And the act appeared to his countrymen all the nobler from the fact that he was trying to set a precedent which should take the place of a constitutional provision. The first president of our republic has sometimes been falsely represented as disagreeing widely with Jefferson and Lafayette rgearding the third term. The fact was that there was no discussion of a third term. In a letter dated April 28, 1788, Washington employed the language which is sometimes pointed to as his indorseto the ment of repeated presidency, but his course thereafter demonstrated that he thought one term sufficient unless a great emergency dictated the acceptance of a second term in the office. In his first term the great emergency arose and he was deemed universally most capfor anable of serving the public term. The language other four-yea- r quoted is his own and occurs in the letter of 1788, which contains the following paragraphs: . . as- we find it repeated as his own comment in his book on Congressional Government. In one place he writes: The business of the president, oc By F. P. Gallagher civil-servic- e men must learn, not something to skill in which they are born. Americans take to business of all kinds more naturally than any other nation ever did, and the executive duties of government constitute just an exalted kind of business; but even Americans in their cradles. are not presidents e too much preparaOne can tory training and experience who is to fill so high a magistracy. It is difficult to perceive, therefore, upon what safe ground of reason are built the opinion of those persons who regard short terms of service as sacredly and peculiarly republican in principle. If republicanism is founded upon good sense, nothing so far removed from good sense can be part and parcel of it. Efficiency is the only just foundation for confidence in a public officer under republican institutions no less than under monarchs; and short terms which cut off the efficient as surely and inexorably as the inefficient are quite as repugnant to republican as to manarchial rules of wisdom. Unhappily, however, this is not American doctrine. not-hav- term The provision for the four-yea- r in the constitution was a compromise. It was the belief of Alexander Hamilton that the president should serve for life during good behavior, a principle which has been applied to the federal judiciary.- Other members of the convention insisted that the president should be elected for one term only. The reasonableness of the compromise appears in the language of Jefferson: . n. . The service for eight years, with a power to remove at the end of the first four, comes nearly to my principle as corrected by experience. who is doing wrong. The main anxiety of the patriotic framers of the constitution was that might end in the overthrow of the republic, and the forma ns public. The origin of the belief that the first president was not opposed in principle to a third term is traceable to his exclusion from his farewell address of a statement which, it was well known among some of his close friends, he had intended to include in that document at the time he broached the subject of the address to Jamerf Madison. To Madison he gave a letter setting forth his views concerning a farewell address. In the letter are to be found these words: ns I will without apology desire, if the measure itself should strike you as proper or likely to produce public good or private honor, that you would turn, your thoughts to a valedictory address from me to the public, expressing in plain and modest terms that, having been honored with the presidential chair and to the best of my abilities contributed to the organization and administration of the government; that having arrived at a period of life when the private walks of it in the shades of retirement become necessary and will be most pleasing to me! (and as the spirit of the on Page 18.) , Guarded so effectually as the proposed constitution is in respect to the prevention of bribery and undue influence in the choice of president, I con- - SpeeinliMt gov-(Continu- on Ilubbitt IlenrinK Jackson, Curtis SnpceMMor to J. 1. Fowler & ed nnd Axle Calhoun Co. Machine nnd Auto Repair .Shop General llepnlr Work to all llnkro of Car anil Truek Aeetylene Welding;, Light anil Heavy Machine Work All Work Giiaranteeil I.oeation of Shop: Hear that the president of the United States should have been elected for seven years and forever ineligible afterwards. I have since become sensible that seven years is too long to be irremovable and that there should be a peaceable way of withdrawing a man in midway uni--versal- ly re-electi- - My opinion originally was fess I differ widely myself from Mr. Jefferson and you as to the expediency or necessity of rotation in that appointment. The matter was fairly discussed in the convention, and to my full conviction, under an extended view of this part of the subject, I can see no propriety in precluding ourselves from the services of any man who, in some great emergency, shall be deemed most capable of serving the Ill one Wiin. 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