What if Washington had Remained President for Life?

What it says on the tin? What if Washington had decided that his new nation needed him more than any precedent and stayed in office until he died?

To expand on this, would he or could he have endorsed another candidate when he felt he was about to die, and effectively appointed the next candidate? How would modern America look?
 
It would set a precedent and become standard. Once elected a president would be expected to keep running for re-election until he is either voted out or dies. Term limits might still be put in place later on, but we might have a four or five term limit, rather than two.

Additionally, it will also become the precedent to follw in other emerging democracies in the 19th century. In Latin America, for example, folks like Porfirio Diaz would be quite happy to have this precedents established for them. You could also expect quite a few republics world wide to become quasi-monarchies as the President in power can always boost up his son politically to run for office after he dies; the Lopez dynasty in Paraguay might last longer (although their downfall was the result of their defeat in the War of The Triple Alliance then their dynastic rule so it might not be the case here).

Another side effect that might have happened, is that the office of the Presidency devolves into mostly a figure-head position, with the Speaker of the House having a much more active prime-minister-like role. If this becomes the case, it would be quite rare to vote out a President, and it would likely always happen in tandem with the speaker and a big shift within the government.
 
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It would have set an extremely bad precedent and quite possibly have led to America going the same way of a lot of 20th century post colonial countries where the "leader of the liberation struggle" or equivalent decides that he's irreplaceable.

The results of which have varied from crappy to hellish.
 
It would have set an extremely bad precedent and quite possibly have led to America going the same way of a lot of 20th century post colonial countries where the "leader of the liberation struggle" or equivalent decides that he's irreplaceable.

The results of which have varied from crappy to hellish.

Not necessarily. The US was far more developed at independence than those countries you're referring to, and for that matter, Latin America at independence as well.
 
the Latin democracies were rarely anything but attempts at holding on to power for as long as possible. rewriting the constitution and rubber stamping it through congress to allow for dictatorship for as long as power could fend off challengers, and then the challengers usually did the same thing. you don't need GW to set an example.
 
In the US, what would happen is that term limits would very rapidly be set in writing, exactly what happened the first time a president decided he was indispensable and ran again and again.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Something to keep in mind about Washington and his generation

What it says on the tin? What if Washington had decided that his new nation needed him more than any precedent and stayed in office until he died? To expand on this, would he or could he have endorsed another candidate when he felt he was about to die, and effectively appointed the next candidate? How would modern America look?

Something to keep in mind about Washington and his generation; they were as close to Cromwell and his generation than Lincoln et all were to Washington and his...

The founding generation in the US were true republicans (small r); they had seen monarchies comes and go, and had seen democratic (small d) revolutions betray their principles because of generals' desire for power.

Not to get all exceptionalist and everything, but the founding generation knew what they wanted to avoid, and Cromwell's Britain was a prime example.

Best,
 
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