Editorial: Non-Democratic unity
Shortly before his death, Thomas Jefferson, founder of the Democratic Party, wrote: “Four Presidents voluntarily retiring at the end of their eighth year” [Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe] established a precedent so strongly that:
…should a President consent to be a candidate for a third election, I trust he would be rejected on this demonstration of ambitious views.
The principle that two terms are enough for any man was not challenged until near the end of President Grant’s second term. And that challenge was rebuffed when the House of Representatives passed a resolution that:
…any departure from this time-honored custom would be unwise, unpatriotic and fraught with peril to our free institutions.
The vote was 234–18 – the Democrats voting unanimously.
In 1928, when some feared that President Coolidge might be drafted for a third-term nomination despite his “I do not choose” statement, the Senate adopted (56–26) a similar resolution offered by Senator La Follette – the Democrats voting 40–4.
The Democratic National Committee met in Washington yesterday to ratify a choice already made for a new party chairman, and to ratify a choice already made as to the time and place of the party’s next nominating convention, and among the committeemen and committeewomen there seems to be unanimity of opinion that the party at its convention will have only one man to offer – that he who served a third term must be drafted for a fourth.
Did somebody say a leopard couldn’t change its spots? Or is this some other party that now carries the Democratic label?