Thande
Donor
A rather vague question, so let me outline what I mean. In the ancient world through to early modern times, elected offices tended to be either:
1) For life, or
2) For a very short term by modern standards, like six months or one year.
Also, instead of having an absolute term limit like some offices have nowadays (e.g. you can only serve 2 or 3 terms), it was more common to have a rule like "you can be elected to as many terms as you want, but you can't succeed yourself so you can't serve consecutive terms" or more esoterically "you can only serve X number of years in a Y-year period" which comes to the same thing.
A few traditional elected offices like this survive today, but the vast majority of elected offices nowadays have much longer terms (four, five, six years) and there is no longer a taboo about succeeding yourself (i.e. being directly re-elected). Arguably the USA, or rather the USA's federal government, is to blame for this for setting a precedent that inspired many others. (The states, on the other hand, often preserved many of these older ideas for a long time, especially in New England). So what if some of these ideas got into the USA's federal constitution? Shorter terms are probably not that feasible because of the size of the country and the problems of collecting the votes with 18th century technology (the 2-year terms of Representatives probably indicates how short they could realistically go) but what about making it so there are no explicit term limits on the presidency--just like OTL until the 22nd amendment--but you aren't allowed to succeed yourself, so nobody can run for re-election, you have to wait another four years to run again?
Another aspect is that older conceptions generally lacked the idea of there being an automatic succession (in some US states, the president of the state senate took over if a Governor died or moved up to a federal office, but this was explicitly a short-term caretaker thing) and generally demanded a new vote if a leader died or otherwise was no longer in office. The reason why I bring this up is that otherwise sitting presdients might try and get around the no direct re-election rule by running as vice-president to a puppet who would then resign so they can take over again--remember before John Tyler nobody agreed on whether the vice-president should automatically succeed the president or not.
Any other ideas about this?
1) For life, or
2) For a very short term by modern standards, like six months or one year.
Also, instead of having an absolute term limit like some offices have nowadays (e.g. you can only serve 2 or 3 terms), it was more common to have a rule like "you can be elected to as many terms as you want, but you can't succeed yourself so you can't serve consecutive terms" or more esoterically "you can only serve X number of years in a Y-year period" which comes to the same thing.
A few traditional elected offices like this survive today, but the vast majority of elected offices nowadays have much longer terms (four, five, six years) and there is no longer a taboo about succeeding yourself (i.e. being directly re-elected). Arguably the USA, or rather the USA's federal government, is to blame for this for setting a precedent that inspired many others. (The states, on the other hand, often preserved many of these older ideas for a long time, especially in New England). So what if some of these ideas got into the USA's federal constitution? Shorter terms are probably not that feasible because of the size of the country and the problems of collecting the votes with 18th century technology (the 2-year terms of Representatives probably indicates how short they could realistically go) but what about making it so there are no explicit term limits on the presidency--just like OTL until the 22nd amendment--but you aren't allowed to succeed yourself, so nobody can run for re-election, you have to wait another four years to run again?
Another aspect is that older conceptions generally lacked the idea of there being an automatic succession (in some US states, the president of the state senate took over if a Governor died or moved up to a federal office, but this was explicitly a short-term caretaker thing) and generally demanded a new vote if a leader died or otherwise was no longer in office. The reason why I bring this up is that otherwise sitting presdients might try and get around the no direct re-election rule by running as vice-president to a puppet who would then resign so they can take over again--remember before John Tyler nobody agreed on whether the vice-president should automatically succeed the president or not.
Any other ideas about this?