AHC: Grant pulls off a Cleveland

Have his Presidency go a little better, perhaps with him becoming Secretary of War under Johnson and having more administrative experience/meeting more executive types, allowing him to perhaps avoid the scandals of his administration. Good President, serves his 8 years, finds private life isn't for him, comes back in 1880.

Not sure if Tilden would win in '76 or a natural Republican successor of Grant if his administration is successful and popular. You could see reconstruction last longer.
 
Isn't that more of an FDR-Cleveland mash, though?

Actually, the closest analogy is to the claim made by Theodore Roosevelt's supporters in 1912 that the "no third term" tradition was only meant to prevent an incumbent president from using the powers of office to keep himself president indefinitely, and should therefore have no applicability to a third *non-consecutive* term. Had Grant won in 1880, that argument would have been more plausible.
 
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