How Many Terms For Obama?

Jose Serrano, a Congressman from New York’s Sixteenth District (Bronx County, New York City) has spent three years pushing a Constitutional Amendment that would repeal the 22nd Amendment. That’s the amendment that was added back in the 1950s in response to FDR’s four terms.
It limits all future presidents to two terms. Since then, at least one president could easily have won a third term—Eisenhower in 1960. Whether or not he would have wanted it, he was stopped by the 22nd Amendment.
The 22nd Amendment codified the custom begun by George Washington that all presidents stop after two terms—“lest”, as Tennyson wrote of the death of King Arthur, “one good custom should corrupt all the world.” That was possibly the best gift Washington ever gave his country.
Washington was popular enough he could have become “king” and served in the office for life as so many revolutionaries since have done. People around him were perfectly willing to address him as “Your Majesty”. He said, “No” and went back to his farm.
Before Washington, only about two or three men in all of recorded history ever voluntarily gave up power. Power is addictive. I cannot think of many things I’ve done that were as exciting as exercising the power to make a phone call and have a multi-billion dollar agency jump at my request.
Imagine being able to do that to the entire federal establishment—from the pentagon to the Social Security Administration. Wow. Then, suppose you were popular enough that you could get re-elected for a third and a fourth term so that you could go on and on making those calls!
President Taft, a judicious man not known for his love of power was asked after he left office in 1913 what he missed most about the presidency. His answer was succinct: “The Power”. Imagine, in a single noon hour, going from a man whose phone calls must be answered by anyone on earth to somebody who now must drive his own car and wait to be called back.
It’s a rare human being who wouldn’t be tempted to avoid that let down. When Roosevelt became the first president in American history to allow the temptation to win—and ran for a third term—he violated something very deep and basic in the American psyche.
Oh, there were all sorts of good and necessary reasons why he—and he only—was needed in the presidency in 1940. World War II was raging. The fleet he had built for eight years to crush Japan wasn’t quite ready. There was a chance the Japanese might attack before we were ready to destroy them (they did, a year later). He had an excellent personal relationship with Churchill, etc. etc. etc.
Someday in the future, there may seem to be all sorts of good and necessary reasons for some future president to stay in office, for term after term after term … . However competent he or she may be, what Lord Acton wrote over a century ago holds true. “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Power can become absolute in all kinds of ways. Sometimes nothing more than longevity is required. (Note Hugh Capet who was selected by French nobles to be “King of France” in AD 987. He was pretty much picked because he was just about the weakest of the French nobility. They figured they’d have nothing to fear from such a puny dukedom. But the House of Capet had one gift—they kept producing heirs. This went on for centuries. (They are still around today.) In that time they added to their domain and estates acre by acre until a descendent (Louis XIV) could accurately claim to be, in his person, the entire state of France. His was a most corrupt form of absolute power.)
A man who serves as president for twenty years may well have acquired far more power than a man who leaves after eight. I think Washington intuited this. Some extremely powerful Congressmen and Senator have stayed around for decades—with power that not even a president dared defy.
J. Edgar Hoover of the FBI stayed as bureau chief for around half a century. He literally died in office because no one could get rid of him or induce him to retire. Few men in American history have had more absolute power. We don’t need another one like him. Ever.
However good and popular a president Barack Obama may turn out to be, however beloved he may be after two terms, it would not be good for us—or him—to entrust the power of the modern presidency to him or anyone on an open ended basis.
The 22nd Amendment is a powerful protection—sometimes needed despite ourselves.