Third Term Quotes
Statement when she was told that FDR would run for a third term as President.
This quotation perhaps was the most critical in Roosevelt’s political career. After winning the presidential election in his own right, that evening at a press conference he called, he not only committed to serving only two terms—then a custom and not law as it would be after WWII—but he also committed that his first three and a half years where he was not elected but assumed the presidency upon McKinley’s assassination would count as a full elected term. He therefore in 1908 could not run again even though the public wanted him to, and he might have liked another term. More important historically was 1912. Roosevelt had chosen his close friend and colleague William Howard Taft to succeed him and with Roosevelt’s support he was elected in 1908. But Taft’s wife who had always been his closest political advisor and reviewer of all his policies and speeches, had a stroke shortly after Taft was elected. Taft’s performance as President was very disappointing to Roosevelt, and he ran against Taft in the 1912 Republican nominating campaign. The very conservative Republicans were against Roosevelt, but many of those who liked him were distressed that he was reneging on his pledge not to run for a 3rd term. Roosevelt lost, and famously started the Bull Moose Party and ran against Taft and Wilson. He outpolled Taft but with the split Republican vote, Woodrow Wilson won the Presidency. This pledge haunted Roosevelt for the rest of his life.
In an irony, the first President limited by a term limit amendment pushed by Republicans remembering FDR turned out to be fellow Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.
The strongman president, barred from a 3rd 5 year term by the Burundi Constitution, came up with an absurd argument as to why the limit should not apply to him. When the Supreme Court would not go along with the scheme, he threatened them and finally they all reversed their previous opinion and voted to allow it—all except for Nimpagaritse who did not sign the reversal, but was no longer safe. Although the President tried to arrest him, he escaped over the border and went inti exile.
The president had served two terms. The Constitution, passed in 1993 and endorsed by him, prohibited a third term. However, by 1999 he was considering a third term. There appeared to be no one in his political party who could beat the opposition who had been very critical of his autocratic Presidency.
