William Hogeland: Our Founding Lame Duck
[William Hogeland is the author of “The Whiskey Rebellion.”]
HISTORIANS have often noted that George Washington not only began but also did much to define the American presidency. He imprinted on the office a sense of competence and integrity that can make later presidents, even successful ones, seem to fall short. Then to top it off, he left the job voluntarily. No law required him to step down, and running against him would have been impossible. Retiring after two terms, Washington enabled the transfer of executive power by electoral process.
That crowning achievement also made George Washington our first lame-duck president. Here again he set the standard, albeit one less celebrated by history. His last year in office was, in his estimation, lame indeed. He was just waiting for it all to be over....
The hopelessness with which Washington ended his presidency was obvious in the way he described to Hamilton his plan to retire. He wrote that he had “a disinclination to be longer buffeted in the public prints by a set of infamous scribblers.” He needed retirement, he told another correspondent, just to make bearable what he predicted would be a short trip to his death.
In the last few months of his term, as the first vicious presidential election contest (between Jefferson and John Adams) geared up, the president did little but hold ceremonial meetings with Indian leaders, accept visits of congratulation and write farewell letters. His annual address to Congress that year was as insistent a goodbye as his much-praised farewell speech. But he himself seemed, one observer thought, “morose.” Today we might call it depressed.
Two-term presidents nowadays typically celebrate their accomplishments, hand out grants and pardons, and talk excitedly about beginning a new career of public service. They may be happier than Washington was, but he may have set the pattern that condemns them to a period of impotence while we wait for the next leader to come along.
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HISTORIANS have often noted that George Washington not only began but also did much to define the American presidency. He imprinted on the office a sense of competence and integrity that can make later presidents, even successful ones, seem to fall short. Then to top it off, he left the job voluntarily. No law required him to step down, and running against him would have been impossible. Retiring after two terms, Washington enabled the transfer of executive power by electoral process.
That crowning achievement also made George Washington our first lame-duck president. Here again he set the standard, albeit one less celebrated by history. His last year in office was, in his estimation, lame indeed. He was just waiting for it all to be over....
The hopelessness with which Washington ended his presidency was obvious in the way he described to Hamilton his plan to retire. He wrote that he had “a disinclination to be longer buffeted in the public prints by a set of infamous scribblers.” He needed retirement, he told another correspondent, just to make bearable what he predicted would be a short trip to his death.
In the last few months of his term, as the first vicious presidential election contest (between Jefferson and John Adams) geared up, the president did little but hold ceremonial meetings with Indian leaders, accept visits of congratulation and write farewell letters. His annual address to Congress that year was as insistent a goodbye as his much-praised farewell speech. But he himself seemed, one observer thought, “morose.” Today we might call it depressed.
Two-term presidents nowadays typically celebrate their accomplishments, hand out grants and pardons, and talk excitedly about beginning a new career of public service. They may be happier than Washington was, but he may have set the pattern that condemns them to a period of impotence while we wait for the next leader to come along.