The President Who Set the Precedent Against a Third Term

Terence P. Jeffrey on Apr 2, 2025

When President George Washington was in his second term, there was nothing in the Constitution that prevented him from seeking a third.

But he did not.

In his Farewell Address in 1796, Washington explained why he was not seeking another term.

"The period for a new election of a Citizen, to Administer the Executive government of the United States, being not far distant, and the time actually arrived, when your thoughts must be employed in designating the person, who is to be cloathed with that important trust, it appears to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number of those, out of whom a choice is to be made," wrote Washington.

"Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe, that while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene, patriotism does not forbid it," he said.

In the ensuing presidential election, John Adams won 71 Electoral College votes and narrowly defeated Thomas Jefferson, who won 68.

In the third year of the Adams presidency, Gov. Jonathan Trumbull Jr. of Connecticut, as noted by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, wrote a letter to Washington suggesting he run again for president.

"You may perhaps recollect, my Dear Sir! that in some conversation of mine with you on the Event of your resignation of the Presidency, or in some Letter written to you on that subject, I expressed to you my wish, that no untoward Events might take place, which should once more draw you from your beloved solitude & retirement, and force you again to assume the Cares of Government," Trumbull wrote on June 22, 1799. "The period then alluded to, and the necessity which I then contemplated might exist, I now begin to realize as fast approaching. Another Election of a President is near at hand, and I have confidence in believing, that, should your Name again be brort up, with a View to that Object, you will not disappoint the hopes & Desires of the Wise & Good in every State, by refusing to come forward once more to the relief & support of your injured Country. Need I apologize to you Sir! for this hint? Or shall I frankly tell you, that this Idea is not vaguely started by me, but is strongly prompted by the necessity of our situation, and may probably be pursued in earnest; for unless some eminently prominent Character shall be brort up to view on the Occasion, the next Election of President, I fear, will have a very illfated Issue."

On July 21, 1799, Washington sent a letter to Gov. Trumbull rejecting his suggestion.

"Prudence on my part must arrest any attempt at the well meant, but mistaken views of my friends, to introduce me again into the Chair of government," he said.

No American president was elected to a third term until President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1940.

"Between 1796 and 1940," the National Constitution Center reports on its website, "four two-term Presidents sought a third term to varying degrees. Ulysses S. Grant wanted a third term in 1880, but he lost the Republican Party nomination to James Garfield on the 36th ballot. Grover Cleveland lacked party support for a third term but was a rumored candidate. Woodrow Wilson hoped a deadlocked 1920 convention would turn to him for a third term but he received no support at the Democratic convention."

Teddy Roosevelt, the center reports, "sought a third nonconsecutive term in the 1912 presidential election."

He did not get it.

FDR ran for a third term in 1940 and won. Then he won a fourth term in 1944 -- and died in 1945, turning the presidency over to Vice President Harry Truman.

In the 1946 midterm elections, the Republicans won control of both the House and the Senate. In 1947, this Republican-controlled Congress passed the 22nd Amendment and sent it to the states for ratification. In 1951, it was ratified.

"No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice," says this amendment.

In a telephone interview with NBC's Kristen Welker on Sunday, President Donald Trump left open the possibility of seeking a third term. "A lot of people want me to do it," Trump said, according to NBC News. "But, I mean, I basically tell them we have a long way to go, you know, it's very early in the administration."

"I like working," Trump said, when asked about seeking another term.

"I'm not joking," Trump said, according to NBC. "But I'm not -- it is far too early to think about it."

Hopefully, when it comes to seeking a third term, Trump will emulate Washington -- not FDR.

To find out more about Terence P. Jeffrey and read features by other Creators writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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