22nd Amendment and Clinton
Mickey Kaus may be right that Bill Clinton's timing was questionable in bringing up the 22nd Amendment. (Scroll down to May 28). Clinton's suggestion was that someone as young as he is could serve two terms as President, take a break, and still be young enough to serve again. The timing issue is that several more or less obscure Democrats are already trying to run for President, and the last thing they want is to be overshadowed by Clinton.
Kathryn Lopez at The Corner took up the issue.
She says she does not want to lead a campaign on the subject, but she does not think the 22nd Amendment was a very good idea. Even if it had allowed Clinton to serve a third term, she would have opposed him within the system, and the people would have spoken. She also says it would have been better if Giuliani could have stayed Mayor, at least for a while.
(The 22nd Amendment prevents anyone from serving more than 10 years as President; anyone elected President twice cannot run again (Ike, Reagan, Clinton, even (hah, hah) Nixon). If a Vice-President takes over during his predecessor's term, he can still only serve a total of ten years. The campaign for the Amendment was driven by Republicans, enraged by losing the presidency 4 times when FDR was their opponent, and then, worst of all, once to Truman. The Amendment took effect while Truman was still President, but he was grandfathered; Eisenhower--1953-1961-- was the first popular president who was "term limited")
I e-mailed Lopez to praise her for an argument that doesn't always support her own prejudices.
[Kudos for making your points about the 22nd Amendment.
It is all the more impressive when you admit your recommended repeal of the Amendment might have prolonged Clinton's presidency, which you would have opposed.
As far as I know, presidential term limits are the only ones that the Federalist Papers explicitly argue against.
No. 72 has been one of my favourites for years. There are lots of arguments, but the clincher seems to be this:
"An ambitious man...finding himself seated on the summit of his country's honours, looking forward to the time at which he must descend from the exalted eminence forever, and reflecting that no exertion of merit on his part could save him from the unwelcome reverse, would be much more violently tempted to embrace a favorable conjuncture for the prolongation of his power, at every personal hazard, than if he had the probablity of answering the same end by doing his duty.
"Would it promote the peace of the community, or the stability of the government, to have half a dozen men who had had credit enough to raise themselves to the seat of the supreme magistracy wandering among the people like discontented ghosts and sighing for a place which they were destined never more to possess?"
I first read this in about 1978, when Nixon was indeed wandering the country (although of course his immediate problem in 1974 was not the 22nd Amendment). Clinton is a unique case so far in that he was popular in 2000 (unlike Truman in 1952), and he is much younger than Ike or RR at comparable points.
Federalist 72 makes clear what many have questioned--that the presidency is supposed to attract the most ambitious (greatest or most dangerous) individuals, and will do so by offering expansive powers, and indeed a chance for glory. Of course there were reasons to downplay the powers of the presidency in order to get the constitution ratified by people who were suspicious of monarchy--even the elected kind. The presidency, as Harvey Mansfield especially has shown, is extremely flexible; sometimes the president can be contained by formalities, when Congress and the Supreme Court exert themselves. At other times--i.e. in an emergency--the presidency can seem very informal, spontaneous, and therefore both dangerous and effective. If the people can keep re-electing the same person, they may confirm the success of a demagogue; but the alternative may be worse.
Of course, Alexander Hamilton would probably be amazed at how peacefully those who lose office accept the outcome.
Anyway, I enjoyed your comments.]
I could have gone on. Federalist #72 also has this wonderful passage:
"Even the love of fame, the ruling passion of the noblest minds, which would prompt a man to plan and undertake extensive and arduous enterprises for the public benefit, requiring considerable time to mature and perfect them, if he could flatter himself with the prospect of being allowed to finish what he had begun, would, on the contrary, deter him from the undertaking, when he foresaw that he must quit the scene before he could accomplish the work, and must commit that, together with his own reputation, to hands which might be unequal or unfriendly to the task."
Update: July 24/03: Lopez brought it up again, linking to a newspaper story in Troy, NY.
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