Collier's Weekly. 56:7-8. N. 6, '15. One term for Wilson? David Lawrence. Collier's Weekly. 75:8-9. F. 28, '25. Give the Presidents a chance. Richard J. Walsh. Congressional Digest. 3:327-8. Jl.-Ag. '24. President of the United States of America: his powers, duties, and manner of election as provided by the Constitution. (Followed by an account of the first election. p. 328-9.) Congressional Digest. 3:331-5+. Jl.-Ag. '24. How the President of the United States is elected today. Congressional Record. 48, pt. 11:11439-43, 11458-66. Ag. 21, '12; also 49, pt. 3:2258-81, 2344-66, 2401-20. Ja. 30-F. 1, '13. Debate in the Senate on S.J. Res. 78 proposing amendment to the Constitution relating to the presidential term. Current Opinion. 54:178–80. Mr. '13. Changing the presidential term to six years. Forum. 20:257-65. N. '95. Third term tradition. John B. McMaster. Forum. 31:23–9. Mr. '01. Growing power of the President. Henry L. West. Harper's Weekly. 56:6. My. 4, '12. Great tradition; it must be kept inviolate. Independent. 63 :1087–9. N. 7, '07. Third term tradition. James Schouler. Independent. 113:486-7+. D. 6, '24. What qualities do we want in our Presidents? Donald Wilhelm. Literary Digest. 46:327-9. F. 15, '13. Six-year Presidents. Nation. 96:120. F. 6, '13. Presidential term. Nation. 102:35. Ja. 13, '16. Wilson on the second term. New Republic. 42:142-4. Ap. 1, '25. Our evolving executive. North American Review. 186:620-4. D. '07. Antithird term tradition. North American Review. 203:161-70. F. '16. Wilson and a second term. George Harvey. Outlook. 102: 879-81. D. 28, '12. Presidential term: a poll of the press. Outlook (Lond.). 51:344–5. Ap. 28, '23. Mr. Harding's second term. H. L. Mencken. Protectionist. 27 :659–62. F. '16. The one term pledge. John B. McPherson. Public Affairs. p. 25. O. '23. Should we limit the presidency to one term? Arguments for and against. Saturday Evening Post. 196:16-17. Ap. 12, '24, Mister President. A. J. Beveridge. World's Work. 25:499–500. Mr. '13. Six-year term for Presidents. AFFIRMATIVE REFERENCES BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS Black, Jeremiah S. Essays and speeches. p. 366-89. D. Appleton & Co. New York. 1885. Polen, George P. Shall our Presidents be elected for eight years? 32p. F. Schmidt Jr. New York. 1898. United States. 27th Cong., 2d Sess. House Report No. 1104. Amendment to the Constitution: laid upon the table, August 30, 1842. (p. 10-11. A single presidential term.) United States. 62 Cong., 2d Sess. House Report No. 885. One six-year presidential term: report to accompany H.J. Res. 325, June 13, 1912. (A great part of this is George Harvey's article "The unwritten law and the great emergency" from the North American Review for April, 1912.) PERIODICALS Chautauquan. 67:103-5. J1. '12. Single six-year presidential term. Congressional Globe. 42d Cong., 2d Sess. 1:259–60. D. 21, '71. Speech in the Senate of Charles Sumner on the one term for President. Congressional Record. 48, pt. 4:3132-3. Presidential term: speech of John D. Works, on S.J. Res. 78, in the Senate, March 11, 1912. Congressional Record, 48, pt. 11:11255-64. Presidential term: speech of Senator Albert B. Cummins in the Senate. August 9, 1912. Congressional Record. 49, pt. 1:294-9. Presidential term: speech of John D. Works in the United States Senate, December 9 and 10, 1912. Congressional Record, 49, pt. 3:2363-6, 2401-7. Presidential term: speech of Albert. B. Cummins on S.J. Res. 78, in the Senate, January 31 and February 1, 1913. Congressional Record. 54, appendix: 295-8. F. 7, '16. Amendment to elect Presi- Harper's Weekly. 56:10. My. 11, '12. Third term. A. M. Low. Harper's Weekly. 57:4. F. 8, '13. Freeing the President. Nation. 94:636–7. Je. 27, '12. The presidential term. Herbert L. Baker. Nation. 96:280–1. Mr. 20, '13. Proposed constitutional amendment and ex-Presidents: letter. Herbert L. Baker. New York Times. p. 3. Ag. 6, '23. Cummins advocates one-term presidency. North American Review. 130:197–223. Mr. '80. Third term: reasons against it. Jeremiah S. Black. North American Review. 154:691-704. Je. '92. Perils of re-electing Presidents. Dorman B. Eaton. North American Review. 155:426–9. O. '92. Business in presidential years. Charles S. Smith. North American Review. 195:433–50. Ap. '12. Unwritten law and the great emergency, George Harvey. Women Citizen, n.s. 9:14-15. Je. 28, '24. Longer and calmer terms. Carrie Chapman Catt. NEGATIVE REFERENCES BOOKS AND PAMPHLETS Hamilton, Alexander. Works; ed. by Henry Cabot Lodge. Vol. IX. p. 448–55. G. P. Putnam's Sons. New York. 1886. (See also Congressional Record. 49, pt. 3:2412-13. F. I. '25.) PERIODICALS Collier's. 72:5-6. S. 8, '23. How to save the President. Lindsay Rogers and J.W. Rixey Smith. Commercial and Financial Chronicle. 118:2384. My. 17, '24. Business in presidential years. Congressional Record. 48, pt. 11:11355-66. Presidential term: speech of William E. Borah in the United States Senate, August 20, 1912. Congressional Record. 48, pt. 11:11461-3. Presidential term: speech of Moses E. Clapp in the United States Senate, August 21, 1912. Congressional Record. 48, pt. 11:11463-6. Presidential term: speech of Weldon B. Heyburn, in the United States Senate, August 21, 1912. Congressional Record. 49, pt. 3:2259. Presidential term: speech of Senator Lodge on S.J. Res. 78 in the Senate, January 30, 1913. Congressional Record. 49, appendix: 46–7. F. 6, '13. Presidential term: speech of Hon. C. A. Lindbergh in the House of Representatives. Congressional Record. 53, pt. 13:12620. Ag. 15, '16. Letter of Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey to Mitchell Palmer with reference to the presidential term, February 5, 1913. Forbes Magazine. 15:506–7. F. 2, '24. Do presidential elections bring depression? Ray Vance. Independent. 74 :335–6. F. 13, '13. Presidential term. Nation. 94:484. My. 16, '12. Presidential term. North American Review. 130:116-30. F. '80. Third term. Timothy O. Howe. North American Review. 130:224-35. Mr. '80. Third term: reasons for it. E. W. Stoughton. North American Review. 130:370-6. Ap. '80. General Grant and a third term. G. S. Boutwell. Nation. 101:136-7. Jl. 29, '15. Question of the single term. Outlook. 101:152-3. My. 25, '12. Another effort to hamper the people. Outlook. 102:475–6. N. 2, '12. People and the presidency. Outlook. 112:118. Ja. 19, '16. The presidential term. Outlook. 140:103-7. My. 20, '25. Calvin Coolidge and his job. Dixon Merritt. Protectionist. 27:687-9. F. '16. Wilson on one term: letter to Mr. Palmer. World's Work. 24:257-8. Jl. '12. Shall a third term be forbidden? Yale Review, n.s. 2:510-20. Ap. '13. Election and term of the President. M. Farrand. DORMAN EATON: THE PERILS OF REELECTING PRESIDENTS 1 1 A President with no strong party or personal interest in the election of his successor can approach it with calm fidelity to his great trust. If he be more a partisan than a patriot, he will use his vast powers more for his party than his country. If the candidate of the President's party be the President's favorite, the public interests are quite sure to suffer. Make the President himself the candidate of this party for the succession, and the two most powerful of all human motives-that of personal selfishness and that of party zeal and hate-are combined against fidelity to the public interest. Only the most saintly of men and the noblest of patriots, when thus contemplating their own reelection, can have the sense of duty needed for controlling the selection and conduct of more than a hundred thousand officers-subordinate to the President-in the interest of the public rather than in that of their own reelection. In theory, nothing seems wiser than to make a second presidential term dependent upon the people's judgment of the first. In practice, nothing is more dangerous than to make the hope of such a term a temptation to Presidents to fill all these places with electioneering politicians in aid of such reelections. When political parties combine the great forces of a nation for the election of worthy candidates or the support of a wise policy, they are as salutary as they are powerful. But when a party uses its powers for coercing appointments to parts of the public service in which no party principles are involved, and especially when such powers are united with those of the President for compelling the vast numbers in the civil service to become electioneerers for a second term for a President, then, surely, the party has transcended its sphere, has prostituted its functions, and has become a source both of demoralization and of peril. Though no political party existed when the national Constitution was framed, yet its authors, fearing evil from such party passions as have caused this prostitution, provided for presidential electors, to be selected in each state separately, who, by an independent vote, were to elect the President. It is a familiar fact that this system of electors has failed-has been made almost useless-by the influence of great parties. It is the one great failure of our constitutional system. Yet so completely have party theories dominated political thought, so blinding have the passions of party become, that rarely can we find a proper comprehension of the disastrous consequences of this failure, or of the changes it makes necessary in order to accomplish the purposes of the Constitution in regard to the presidential office. Every suggestion of a remedy is likely, in the minds of perhaps the vast majority, to raise only these questions: How will it benefit my party? Can it be made to injure the other party? But this intrusion of party, where the interests of the country alone should be considered, makes the need of a remedy only the more manifest and imperative. In the subordinate offices, the length of the official term and the matter of reeligibility are not, intrinsically, of prime importance. But when we come to the President, at the center and summit of all official life, at the head of a great host of officers and employees of many kinds and grades, civil, naval, and military, whose services extend to every part of the union and to foreign seas and nations. whose numbers exceed a hundred and fifty thousand, and most of whom, directly or indirectly, hold their places at the pleasure of the Presidentthat President having, besides his vast executive powers, a legislative power equal to one-sixth of that of Congress for making and repealing laws-then, indeed, we have an office the fixing of the term of which and the filling of which not only involve this vast official force and the counterpoise of the Constitution itself, but raise the most vital issues of party strife and national safety. The framers of our Constitution carefully considered the fit length of the President's term and all the bearings of his eligibility for reelection, so far as history or their experience afforded any light. But there had never been anywhere in the world such an office as that of our President, nor a country in which a political party could freely elect the chief executive. When the Constitution was framed, there was no political party, nor for a long time after was there any like the parties of our time. After national parties had arisen, they were for a long time based on principle, and did not rely on patronage-that is, on subordinate offices for gaining power or rewarding party henchmen. For a long time Presi 1 By the Honorable Dorman B. Eaton, Ex-President of the United States Civil Service Commission. In the North American Review, for June 1892, p. 691-704. dents were nominated in congressional caucuses. There were hardly more than a hundred removals for party reasons from 1789 until Jackson's administration. The elaborate organization, the stupendous power, the greed for office, of our parties, like their control of presidential and other elections, were unimagined by our early statesmen. They were acquainted only with little local parties or rather "factions"-as they fitly called them--based on interests of slavery, of large or small states, of northern or southern states, of manufacturing or agricultural states; and these factions were almost without organization. A national party convention, a presidential election, the electioneering activity of more than a hundred thousand official subordinates of a President for his reelection, the awarding of tens of thousands of places as prizes to the victors, potentially, by a President thus elected—these workings of our political system were as much beyond the imagination of its authors as some of them are repugnant to the Constitution itself and to the purposes of its creation. The sessions of the Constitutional Convention began in May and continued until the middle of September. The questions of the reeligibility of the President and of the fit length of his term-in their nature dependent-were always considered together; and first early in June. It was then decided that his term should be seven years, and that he should not be eligible for reelection; only one state favoring reeligibility. The system of presidential electors had not then been devised. The questions of term and reeligibility were again discussed about the middle of July, when there were extreme opinions, ranging from a term of less than seven years to one of good behavior. Six states against four expressed a preference for reeligibility, provided a satisfactory mode of electing the President could be devised. Still, however, the opinion was unanimous that, if he was to be selected by Congress, he ought not to be eligible for reelection. An important argument against reeligibility was the danger that, Congress being a continuous body, its members would be bargained with and corrupted-an argument which, in the main, applied to great national parties also, because they are permanent, with a continuous series of officers ready to make corrupt bargains. The debate shows that there was no anticipation of such party supremacy and evils from partisan removals and officeseeking as our times have seen. Those who favored reeligibility were to devise some new and safe scheme for electing the President. The scheme devised was the election by each state of a number of electors equal to her senators and representatives counted together; and the body of electors thus secured was to elect the President, whereupon their official existence was to cease. In this matter each state was expected to act freely and independently. No senator, representative, or person holding any office of profit or trust under the United States could be an elector. Each presidential elector was expected to cast his vote for President according to his judgment. The thought that these electors would become a servile agency of party, taking no independent action of their own, so that the party election would determine absolutely who should be President, seems to have occurred to no one; a striking evidence that the despotic power of our parties was then inconceivable. Hamilton and Madison, Franklin and Washington, were unable to imagine that state of public opinionrather, of party despotism-which, a few years ago, censured the alleged purpose of James Russell Lowell to cast his vote, as a presidential elector, irrespective of party and according to his conscience; the very thing which they intended, which the Constitution provided for, and which the reeligibility of the President required. Mr. Bancroft tells us that the convention was so converted by this electoral device that, on the faith of it, the reeligibility of the President was approved in July, and his term was reduced from seven years to six. Nevertheless, at the end of the month the convention again voted that the President's term should be seven years, and that he should be ineligible for reelection. The subject was further debated in August, and it was referred to a committee from all the states, from which came a report, in September, limiting the term to four years. The subject had become complicated with questions between large states and small states; and in the meantime theoretical confidence in the electoral scheme had greatly increased. A term of four years was finally adopted for the President, and he was left eligible for reelection. Thus we see that not only the original conviction of the convention, but its deliberate vote at the end of thorough discussion, was for a single term of six or seven years, without eligibility for reelection; and that a four years' terma sudden suggestion-and the allowance of reeligibility were first approved near the end of the session; after the convention, to use Mr. Bancroft's words, had fallen into "an anarchy of opinion," and had come to trust the saving virtues of a device which has utterly failed. It is an instructive fact that Brazil, recognizing that failure, has reaffirmed the most careful judgment of our convention, by giving her President a term of six years and forbidding his reelection. The Federalist defends what was done on the basis of the assumed sufficiency of the electoral scheme. It declares it to have been "a desideratum that the executive should be independent, for his continuance in office, of all but the people themselves"; and so he would have been had presidential electors remained independent. But when party became supreme, they became servile. Public officers became an efficient force for reelecting a President—almost a controlling force for his renomination. A President seeking a reelection found as much reason, perhaps, to consider them as to consider the people. The electoral system began to break down when party, led by Jefferson, began to be excessive; and that experienced party leader-as the first President Harrison tells us in a message in which he condemns a second term-lamented the mistake made in allowing a President an opportunity for grasping a second term through prostitution of his subordinates. Jackson first made party an irresistible power; and, knowing well both presidential frailty and party passions, he comprehended the dangerous consequences of that opportunity. If one of the fiercest of partisans, he was yet honest, fearless, and patriotic. In his first message he advised that the President be made ineligible, and that his term be six years-the best advice Jackson ever gave his party. Twice afterward, in messages, and with deeper earnestness as he saw the dangers increasing, he repeated this advice, and urged a constitutional amendment to make it effective. But the interests of his party, its officials and leaders, in existing methods had become irresistible. The mighty influence of Jackson was as inadequate as that of Jefferson to arrest the growing evil. When a constitutional amendment allowing only one term to a President was pending in 1829, Buchanan opposed it with the characteristic servility to party which enabled that lamentable politician, thirty years later, to be effective for the degradation of his country. The partisan admirers of Jefferson and Jackson have never risen to the level of their principles or their patriotic courage. Shouting for these patriots, they are blind to the evils those men deplored. The virtue of any party must be rare indeed which will waive its advantage in having tens of thousands of its adherents in office at the opening of a presidential canvass. Reform can only come at the hands of a new party, or must not take effect until some years after its adoption. From Jackson's time it was regarded as infidelity to party to repeat his advice. Polk required a pledge from the members of his cabinet not to use their position to affect the presidency-of course against himself. He wanted no rivals. Mr. Curtis has recorded Buchanan's declaration that he found Pierce and his cabinet intent upon building up, through his appointments, a Pierce party for his own reelection. There had been a revolution in presidential elections. The party interests in controlling them through the aid of the office-holders seem to have overawed as well as debauched Presidents. Tyler, who began with deprecating the vicious influence of office-holders on elections, ended by accepting a nomination for a second term from a convention promoted by himself, and mainly composed of officials depending on his favor. Fillmore, a more kindly President, was opposed to a second term, but, yielding to the solicitation of friends, mainly his subordinates in office, he stood for reelection. Politicians who have worked rather for the President and the party than for the country deny him any right to refuse them the chances of extending their official life by renewing is. A party which has made a politician a President claims a right to his services, and to those of the vast army of officials he commands, for carrying the next election. The first President Harrison's profound sense of the evils of a second-term candidacy would probably have prevented his accepting a renomination, had he not died too soon. Aside from Mr. Harrison, Mr. Cleveland is the only President since 1837, when the spoils system had become supreme, who has officially repeated the warnings of Jefferson and Jackson. In his letter accepting his first nomination, Mr. Cleveland used these words: "When we consider the allurements of power, the temptation to retain places, and, more than all, the availability the party finds in an incumbent and a horde of |