I had a two part series on this some years ago in soc.history.what-if. I'll recycle it here (sorry for any links that may no longer work):
*******
"ONE SIX-YEAR TERM
Senate Agrees to Limit on Presidential Tenure. MEASURE GOES TO HOUSE If
Indorsed There, States Will Be Asked to Ratify Amendment. Contest Is So
Close Author of Resolution Casts Deciding Vote -- All Efforts to Exempt
Taft, Wilson, and Roosevelt Fail -- Mormonism in Politics Is Inject- ed
Into Debate -- Representatives De- cline to Discuss Probable Result. ONE
SIX-YEAR TERM.
The Washington Post (1877-1954) - Washington, D.C.
Date: Feb 2, 1913
Start Page: 1
Document Types: front_page
Text Word Count: 1445
With but a single vote to spare, the Senate, late yesterday, after a three
days' debate, adopted the resolution to submit to the States an amendment
to the Constitution, fixing a six-year Presidential term for the President
and Vice President, and making the President ineligible for a second
term."
http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost_historical/access/250213382.html?dids=250213382:250213382&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&date=FEB+02,+1913
***
One of the less remembered consequences of Theodore Roosevelt's bid for a
third term in 1912 was an attempt to pass a constitutional amendment
limiting to the president to a single six-year term. Such amendments have
been proposed on many other occasions, of course--see
http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/11/26/specials/schlesinger-6year.html for
a 1986 denunciation of the idea by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.--but never
did they come so close to passing. Indeed, in 1913, this proposed
amendment actually got the necessary two-thirds vote in the Senate (with
the support of every Democrat but one and a large number of anti-TR
Republicans). In the House, however, it was sent to the Judiciary
Committee and disappeared, seemingly without a trace, a fact which at
first mystified a large number of Representatives who favored it. I will
explain in a later post just what happened to it...
Some background on this amendment:
On April 30, 1912, Representative Henry D. Clayton, a Bryanite Democrat
from Alabama, proposed a joint resolution providing an amendment to the
Constitution "fixing the term, of office of President of the United
States at six years and making him ineligible for a second term."
According to Charles W. Stein, *The Third Term Tradition* (New York:
Columbia UP 1943), pp. 194-5:
"The resolution was directed solely at Theodore Roosevelt. Senators Clark
(Dem.), Root (Rep.), Crane (Rep.), and Cummins (Rep.) announced their
endorsements of it; President Taft himself promised to sign it. A New
York *World* survey revealed 37 Senators in favor of and only 3 opposed to
the Clayton resolution. The remainder were doubtful. Some 209
Representatives endorsed it, 15 opposed it, and 79 were noncommittal or
absent. Colonel Roosevelt immediately declared against it and labeled it
a 'tomfool proposition.' Senator Borah, too, inclined to the negative
side. The *Nation* and *Harper's Weekly* were ardent supporters of the
proposal....Throughout the spring and summer of 1912 the resolution was
debated in Congress, but no action was taken on it until February, 1913,
fully three months after the 1912 election had taken place."
What happened in the meantime is of course well-known: Taft's
renomination, TR's bolt, Wilson's victory over Champ Clark in the
Democratic convention and over Taft and TR in November. However, one
aspect of the campaign which is little remembered is that the Democratic
party's Baltimore platform included the following plank, inserted at the
insistence of William Jennings Bryan:
"We favor a single Presidential term, and to that end urge the adoption of
an amendment to the Constitution making the President of the United States
ineligible to reelection, and we pledge the candidates of this Convention
to this principle."
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=29590
Wilson's position at the time was not known and during the entire campaign
he refused to comment on the one-term plank. In any event, in February
1913 it seemed that the Democrats, with the help of anti-TR Republicans,
had a chance to write this plank into the Constitution:
"On February 1, 1913, by a vote of 47 to 23 the Senate adopted the
Clayton-Works resolution [the Senate sponsor was John D. Works, Republican
of California] favoring a constitutional amendment limiting the presidency
to a single term of six years. The Amendment read thus:
'The executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States
of America. The term of the office of President shall be six years; and
no person who has held the office by election, or discharged its powers or
duties, or acted as President under the Constitution and laws made in
pursuance thereof shall be eligible to hold again the office by election.'
"...After a debate lasting three days, the amendment was passed by a
margin of one vote, the deciding vote being cast by Senator Robert L.
Owen, Democrat of Oklahoma, who came into the Senate chamber just in time
to vote. All Democratic Senators but Shively, of Indiana, voted for the
amendment, and seventeen Republicans, desiring of eliminating Theodore
Roosevelt as a possible future candidate, voted with the Democrats...
[E]very Senator with Roosevelt sympathies strongly opposed it." (Stein,
pp. 226-7)
For some details on the debate, see James L. Sundquist, *Constitutional
Reform and Effective Government,* pp. 49-51
http://books.google.com/books?vid=I...ts=ue9AyFfwph&sig=2v2KPj7a1Un2xf9-Qd0xf-nGGSc
"...Republican Senator John D. Works of California introduced an amendment
for a single six-year term with a vivid condemnation of the manner in
which both Roosevelt in 1904 and Taft in 1912 had, in his view, misused
the resources of the federal government to obtain renomination and, in
Roosevelt's case, reelection. Thousands of federal officeholders, he
charged, had been mobilized into a 'political army,' working for the
candidate rather than the country. And after Roosevelt's reelection,
pending suits against trusts that had supported him were dismissed.
Senator Works continued:
'The effort to elect a President to a second term is a prolific source of
political corruption, neglect of official duty, and betrayal of trust on
the part of public servants. It is degrading to the President himself,
and brings his great office into disrespect, often contempt...A large part
of his time that should be devoted to public service is given over to
politics and the effort to secure his reelection...'"
(Taft himself agreed with part of this critique. Even if a president does
not divert his energies, his appointees do, Taft conceded in a speech
after his defeat. This diversion of energies for at least one year out of
the four of each administration damaged the effectiveness of the
government. If reelection were to be prohibited, he preferred a six year
term to a four year one because four years was "too short a time to work
out great governmental policies.")
Senator Elihu Root of New York (who had become bitterly if temporarily
estranged from TR) argued that a president seeking re-election is
immobilized not for one year, but for two, as was illustrated by the last
two years of the Taft administration. Just when a president "gets to the
point of highest efficiency," Root complained, members of Congress try to
figure out how to beat him, and such an attempt cannot be separated from
an attempt to render ineffective the government he leads.
Henry Cabot Lodge countered Works by arguing that a president barred from
reelection could still use the powers of the presidency to try to bring
about the election of a favored successor. William Borah agreed, noting
that he could not discern any difference between the tactics used by Taft
in trying to get himself re-nominated and re-elected in 1912 with those
used by TR in (successfully) trying to get Taft nominated and elected in
1908. If a president is fit to be in the White House, he will be a strong
party leader, and naturally he will "seek to lead his party, if not for
his cause, then to the advantage of his successor" as Jackson did for Van
Buren and Jefferson for Madison.
John Sharp Williams, Democrat of Mississippi, drew exactly the opposite
conclusion from the deadlock of 1910-12 that Root drew. The 1910 election
had resulted in two years of divided government, but a six year term for
Taft would simply have added two more such years, thus "emphasizing rather
than diminishing the defect in our system as it is." (Given this
argument, it is curious that Williams apparently voted in favor of the
amendment, at least if Charles W. Stein is correct that Shively was the
only Democrat to vote "No." Or maybe Williams abstained--the final 47-23
vote was considerably short of the total membership of the Senate.)
Joseph Bristow, Republican of Kansas, echoed Williams' criticism, and
Miles Poindexter, Republican of Washington, stated that six years "is
entirely too long for a bad man, and it is too short for a good man."
Trust the people to decide at the end of the fourth year, he argued.
The Senate first defeated by 25-42 a proposal by Bristow to reduce the
six-year term to four years, and then, as noted, the resolution did just
barely get the necessary two-thirds vote (47-23). The amendment's fate
was now up to the House. It seems that some Democrats there were starting
to have second thoughts, and not just because Wilson was now president-
elect (after all, he had run on a single-term plank, and if he hadn't
indicated approval of it, he hadn't indicated disapproval either). For
one thing, while the thought of TR as a possible future candidate of a
*unified* Republican-Progressive opposition was disturbing, there was also
the possibility that TR would as in 1912 run as a third-party candidate
and again split the opposition to the Democracy--and the Democrats
certainly did not want to prevent *that.* Then, too, there had been much
criticism of the amendment as too obviously directed at individuals rather
than by considerations of the long-term effect on the government.
Apparently, Clayton was willing to delay the effect of the amendment until
the 1920 election, thus giving Wilson, TR, and Taft each one more shot in
1916:
"In the house a similar resolution, introduced by Mr. Clayton of Alabama,
was referred to the judiciary committee, where it was put over to the next
congress. It provided for a single six-year term, effective in 1921, to
exempt Taft, Wilson, and Roosevelt from its operation. No action was
taken on the senate or Works resolution."
http://books.google.com/books?vid=LCCN02002081&id=qSLY7NkYzN8C&q=effective+in+1921
Why did the amendment, in either Works' form or Clayton's, fail to emerge
from the House Judiciary Committee? At least a large part of the answer
lies in a very interesting letter from President-Elect Wilson to
Representative (and later Attorney General) A. Mitchell Palmer of
Pennsylvania, which was not made public in its entirety until 1916...
[To be continued...]
***
Here in its entirety is President-Elect Wilson's letter to Representative
A. Mitchell Palmer of Pennsylvania, which is credited with blocking House
consideration of the proposed constitutional amendment (which had passed
the Senate) providing for a single six-year presidential term. My source
for the letter is Henry Jones Ford, *Woodrow Wilson: The Man and His Work*
(1916) which is available at
http://books.google.com/books?vid=0onylWz3PRWJ4QVcoM&id=r3QdAAAAMAAJ (the
letter is included as an appendix to the book).
***
State of New Jersey
Executive Department
Feb. 13, 1913
MY DEAR PALMER:
Thank you warmly for your letter of Feb. 3. It was characteristically
considerate of you to ask my views with regard to the joint resolution
which has just come over from the House with regard to the Presidential
term.
I have not hitherto said anything about this question, because I had not
observed that the public was very much interested in it. I must have been
mistaken in this, else the Senate would hardly have acted so promptly upon
it.
It is a matter which concerns the character and conduct of the great
office upon the duties of which I am about to enter. I feel, therefore,
that in the present circumstances, I should not be acting consistently
with my ideals with regard to the rule of entire frankness and plain
speaking that ought to exist between public servants and the public whom
they serve, if I did not speak out about it without reserve, and without
thought of the personal embarrassment.
The question is simply this: Shall our Presidents be free, so far as the
law is concerned, to seek a second term of four years, or shall they be
limited by constitutional amendment to a single term of four years, or to
a single term extended to six years?
I can approach the question from a perfectly impersonal point of view,
because I shall most cheerfully abide by the judgment of my party and the
public as to whether I shall be a candidate for the Presidency again in
1916. I absolutely pledge myself to resort to nothing but public opinion
to decide that question.
The President ought to be absolutely deprived of every other means of
deciding it. He can be. I shall use to the utmost every proper influence
within my reach to see that he is, before the term to which I have been
elected is out. That side of the matter need disturb no one.
And yet, if he is deprived of every other means of deciding the question,
what becomes of the argument for a constitutional limitation to a single
term? The argument is not that it is clearly known now just how long each
President should remain in office. Four years is too long a term for a
President who is not the true spokesman of the people, who is imposed upon
and does not lead. It is too short a term for a President who is doing or
attempting a great work of reform, and who has not had time to finish it.
To change the term to six years would be to increase the likelihood of its
being too long, without any assurance that it would, in happy cases, be
long enough. A fixed constitutional limitation to a single term of office
is highly arbitrary and unsatisfactory from every point-of-view.
The argument for it rests upon temporary conditions which can easily be
removed by law. Presidents, it is said, are effective for one-half of
their term only because they devote their attention during the last two
years of the term to building up the influences, and above all the
organization, by which they hope and purpose to secure a second nomination
and election.
It is their illicit power, not their legitimate influence with the
country, that the advocates of a constitutional change profess to be
afraid of, and I heartily sympathize with them. It is intolerable that
any President should be permitted to determine who should succeed him--
himself or another--by patronage or coercion, or by any sort of control of
the machinery by which delegates to the nominating convention are chosen.
There ought never to be another presidential nominating convention; and
there need never be another. Several of the states have successfully
solved that difficulty with regard to the choice of their Governors, and
Federal law can solve it in the same way with regard to the choice of
Presidents. The nominations should be made directly by the people at the
polls.
Conventions should determine nothing but party platforms, and should be
made up of the men who would be expected, if elected, to carry those
platforms into effect. It is not necessary to attend to the people's
business by constitutional amendment if you will only actually put the
business into the people's own hands.
I think it may safely be assumed that that will be done within the next
four years, for it can be done by statute; it need not wait for
constitutional change. That being done, the question of the Presidential
term can be considered on its merits.
It must be clear to everybody who has studied our political development at
all that the character of the Presidency is passing through a transitional
stage. We know what the office is now and what use must be made of it;
but we do not know what it is going to work out into; and until we do
know, we shall not know what constitutional change, if any is needed, it
would be best to make.
I must speak with absolute freedom and candor in this matter, or not speak
at all; and it seems to me that the present position of the Presidency in
our actual system, as we use it, is quite abnormal and must lead
eventually to something very different.
He is expected by the nation to be the leader of his party as well as the
chief executive officer of the Government, and the country will take no
excuses from him. He must play the part and play it successfully, or lose
the country's confidence. He must be Prime Minister, as much concerned
with the guidance of legislation as with the just and orderly execution of
law; and he is the spokesman of the nation in everything, even the most
momentous and most delicate dealings of the Government with foreign
nations.
Why in such circumstances should he be responsible to no one for four long
years? All the people's legislative spokesmen in the House of
Representatives and one-third of their representatives in the Senate are
brought to book every two years; why not the President, if he is to be the
leader of the party and the spokesman of policy?
Sooner or later, it would seem, he must be made answerable to opinion in a
somewhat more informal and intimate fashion--answerable, it may be, to the
Houses whom he seeks to lead, either personally or through a Cabinet, as
well as to the people for whom they speak. But that is a matter to be
worked out--as it inevitably will be--in some natural American way which
we cannot yet even predict.
The present fact is that the President is held responsible for what
happens in Washington in every large matter, and so long as he is
commanded to lead he is surely entitled to a certain amount of power--all
the power he can get from the support and convictions and opinions of his
fellow countrymen; and he ought to be suffered to use that power against
his opponents until his work is done. It will be very difficult for him
to abuse it. He holds it upon sufferance, at the pleasure of public
opinion. Everyone else, his opponents included, has access to opinion, as
he has. He must keep the confidence of the country by earning it, for he
can keep it no other way.
Put the present customary limitation of two terms into the Constitution,
if you do not trust the people to take care of themselves, but make it two
terms (not one, because four years is often too long) and give the
President the chance to win the full service by proving himself fit for
it.
If you wish to learn the results of constitutional ineligibility to
reelection, ask any former Governor of New Jersey, for example, of what
the effect is in actual experience. He will tell you how cynically and
with what complacence the politicians banded against him waited for the
inevitable end of his term to take their chances with his successor.
Constitutions place and can place no limitations upon their power. They
may control what Governors they can as long as they please, as long as
they can keep their outside power and influence together. They smile at
the coming and going of Governors as some men in Washington have smiled at
the coming and going of Presidents, as upon things ephemeral, which passed
and were soon enough got rid of if you but sat tight and waited.
As things stand now the people might more likely be cheated than served by
further limitations of the President's eligibility. His fighting power in
their behalf would be immensely weakened. No one will fear a President
except those whom he can make fear the elections.
We singularly belie our own principles by seeking to determine by fixed
constitutional provision what the people shall determine for themselves
and are perfectly competent to determine for themselves. We cast a doubt
upon the whole theory of popular government.
I believe that we should fatally embarrass ourselves if we made the
constitutional change proposed; if we want our Presidents to fight our
battles for us, we should give them the means, the legitimate means, the
means their opponents will always have. Strip them of everything else but
the right to appeal to the people, but leave them that; suffer them to be
leaders; absolutely prevent them from being bosses.
We would otherwise appear to be going in two opposite directions. We are
seeking in every way to extend the power of the people, but in the matter
of the Presidency we fear and distrust the people and seek to bind them
hand and foot by rigid constitutional provision. My own mind is not agile
enough to go both ways.
I am very well aware that my position on this question will be
misconstrued, but that is a matter of perfect indifference to me. The
truth is much more important than my reputation for modesty and lack of
personal ambition. My reputation will take care of itself, but
constitutional questions and questions of policy will not take care of
themselves without frank and fearless discussion.
I am not speaking for my own reelection; I am speaking to redeem my
promise that I would say what I really think on every public question and
take my chances in the court of public opinion.
WOODROW WILSON
***
When the amendment was sent to the House (which had been controlled by the
Democrats since the 1910 election), "it was quietly pigeonholed in the
Judiciary Committee when Wilson's views were learned [Palmer had shown the
letter to Judiciary Committee Chairman Henry Clayton and to other
Democratic party leaders; Republicans were not let in on the secret]. At
the time the Senate passed the resolution the House was overwhelmingly in
favor of limiting the presidential term. Many of the House Democrats,
unaware of Wilson's letter to Palmer, were puzzled at the failure of
Congress to act on the resolution..." Charles W. Stein, *The Third Term
Tradition,* p. 229. The existence of the letter became known (beyond the
circle of House Democratic insiders) in 1914, but only in January 1916 was
the letter published in full with Wilson's permission. On that occasion
*The Nation* remarked that the letter showed that from the first Wilson
had "treated the [1912] one-term plank as a bit of Bryanesque buncombe."
(Stein, p. 233)
A couple of questions:
(1) Was it realistic to think that Wilson would *not* write a letter of
this sort? Is there any plausible way he could have backed the single-
term amendment or at least remained neutral? My answer is, probably no,
given his admiration for the British tradition of cabinet government. He
seems to have thought that a President, like a British Prime Minister,
should be able to serve as long as he had the confidence of his party and
the country.
(2) Had the Democrats nominated someone other than Wilson in 1912, would
the amendment have passed? (Given the Republican-Progressive split,
virtually any plausible Democratic nominee was assured victory simply by
getting the core Democratic vote.) Possibly. As I indicated in Part I,
Wilson's chief rival for the Democratic nomination in 1912, Champ Clark,
had endorsed the Clayton-Works resolution. And of course Bryan--and yes,
there was a real possiblity of his getting the nomination if the Wilson-
Clark deadlock could not be broken--would strongly have favored the
amendment. (I do not know what the postition of the relatively
conservative candidates, Harmon and Underwood, was, but in any event
neither of them was likely to be nominated.)
)
