When America was young, its leaders had no trouble retiring from public service and public life.
By Dr. Maurizio Valsania
Professor of American History
Università di Torino
Honeymoon Turns to Hatred
How a person looked through other people’s eyes was an obsession in the 18th century.
An individual in society, Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith wrote in 1759, is “immediately provided with the mirror.” Everyone is “placed in the countenance and behaviour of those he lives with.”
The American founders were particularly concerned about their reputations. Moreover, the judgment of posterity terrified them.
When Washington was about to enter the presidency, he realized his moral stature would suffer. “The eyes of Argus are upon me,” he wrote to his nephew Bushrod Washington in July 1789. Argus Panoptes, the many-eyed giant of Greek mythology, was watching Washington, “and no slip will pass unnoticed.”
When his turn for the highest office came, Thomas Jefferson also shivered with ominous presentiments.
“I know well that no man will ever bring out of that office the reputation which carries him into it,” he wrote.
Public officials will unavoidably fall from grace, Jefferson concluded: “The honey moon would be as short in that case as in any other, and its moments of ecstasy would be ransomed by years of torment and hatred.”
The founders had good reasons to tremble for their reputation – many of these men enslaved other human beings. At the same time, none of them tried to cling to the role of leader when their time had passed. That was because they dreaded the idea that public opinion would censor them as self-serving and cunning operators.
And, more important, it was because they didn’t want to become an embarrassment, a hindrance, a chunk of gravel in the very machinery of the nation.
Stepping Down
Washington, famously, set the example. In June 1799, Jonathan Trumbull Jr., the governor of Connecticut who had also served as Washington’s military secretary during the American Revolution, urged him to run for a third term. Many others had previously prodded him.
But Washington demurred. He was determined not to appear egotistical and be “charged” in the public eye “with concealed ambition.”
Perhaps even stronger, given the country’s heated political climate in the 1790s, there was also Washington’s awareness that he had become a problem himself.
“The line between Parties,” Washington wrote to Trumbull, had become “so clearly drawn” that politicians would “regard neither truth nor decency; attacking every character, without respect to persons – Public or Private – who happen to differ from themselves in Politics.”
Washington was aware that he was no longer the leader in the position to unify the nation in the way he did in the 1780s, at the end of the revolution. Even if he were willing to run for president again, “I am thoroughly convinced I should not draw a single vote” from the opposite side, he wrote Trumbull.
Retiring from Public Life
The founders were able to create a network of admirers who would serve as stewards of their reputation, while downplaying the missteps they made.
“Take care of me when dead,” old Jefferson begged James Madison, his friend of over 50 years, just a few months before he passed away.
For their part, flawed though these leaders were, they helped their friends and admirers by trying not to make them too uncomfortable. They stayed away from public controversy as much as they could. And when they believed they were done, they retired from the public scene – a political act in its own terms.
Even before entering the presidency, Washington wasn’t at all afraid to “tread the paths of private life.” He would do that eventually, right after his second term, in 1797, and “with heartfelt satisfaction.”
Washington had always accepted the unavoidable fact that, like every other mortal, he also would “move gently down the stream of life, until I sleep with my Fathers.”
Washington would be remembered as the American Cincinnatus. Just like Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, the mythic Roman statesman and military leader, Washington himself relinquished power – and he did so voluntarily.
Relinquishing power and retiring were the best way to ensure Washington’s glory and reputation.
Apparently, passing the scepter to the next generation and worrying over one’s reputation don’t come as naturally today – at least to some.
Originally published by The Conversation, 08.02.2023, under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution/No derivatives license.
