WI: George Washington isn't "doctored" to death and has longer career as elder statesman?

. . . backseat govern.
And there's a way to occasionally respectfully do this. You write a letter giving the current president a heads up on some of the drumbeat of conversation you've heard. What you're really doing is underscoring the issue itself plus certain aspects of it.

'Course, it's easy to overplay this method and become a pest.
 
John Quincy Adams took a pretty active role in government after losing the presidency. I think Washington's doing so would make it more acceptable for it to happen for a time, though the practise of bowing out quietly probably still comes to dominate the latter half of the century.
 
And maybe George becomes an advocate for the future 20 years out?

That is, he tries to get the conversation going about how our country might make improvements.
 
Did Betty and the other siblings die of chronic conditions of old age such as cardiovascular disease, or was it more bad luck type of deaths? I hate to be crude about it, but some question of this sort needs to be asked.

The Washingtons were a notoriously short lived family, rarely making it out of their 50s, and George knew it. When he tried to retire the first time before becoming President it was because he was essentially ready to wait around Mount Vernon til he died. And thats 1784/5.
 
An old soc.history.what-if post of mine:

***

"That leading Federalists opposed to Adams did not consider the [no-third-term] rule absolutely binding is evident from their attempt in 1799 to persuade Washington to accept a third term..." Richard P. McCormick, *The Presidential Game: The Origins of American Presidential Politics* (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press 1982), p. 245.

No doubt it is extremely unlikely that Washington would accept--but suppose his health had been better, and the Hamiltonians had persuaded him: "General, this is different from 1796. This time only you can save the nation from the Jacobins [i.e., Jefferson]. Yes, we know you said in 1796 that you would not be a candidate again, but [anticipating TR in 1912] when a man says at breakfast in the morning, 'no thank you, I will not take any more coffee,' it does not mean that he will not take any more coffee to-morrow morning, or next week, or next month, or next year."

So Washington once again reluctantly decides he must accept his country's call. What next? Obviously he is not going to get the office without bitter opposition. After Jay's Treaty, viewed by Republicans as a sell-out to the British, Washington was anything but a non-controversial, non-partisan national hero; one Republican toast in 1796 was "A speedy death to General Washington." In his retirement, he endorsed the Sedition Act, no doubt largely because of resentment of the Republican slanders about him. Still, he is George Washington, and has far more prestige than any other possible Federalist candidate, including Adams. If Adams insists on remaining a candidate, the split in the Federalist ranks between Washington and Adams presumably assures Jefferson's victory. But what if Adams sees the hopelessness of the situation and simply gives up, leaving Washington and Jefferson to fight it out?

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/soc.history.what-if/QFr8-CeL0t4/z3_IdVRUkkwJ
We are still in the era of "second place gets the VP" so Adams will run. He has to. Though, for that "position" we may even see Hamilton run as well and try his machinations on getting a "Washington-Hamilton ticket" where he trades favors, extorts, and conjoles electors into voting for Washington and him. This could make Adams so mad and frustrated we could see him and Burr form an alliance in politics after the election. A Washington-Hamilton administration would butterfly away Burr's ability to challenge him to a dual, or at least make it that he's not at a party in Albany, NY making crude comments about Burr. But maybe he makes those comments in Philly or the new Washington, DC, and the dual takes place in Alexandria. Instead of a VP killing a statesman, it will be a statesman killing a VP. Or maybe in this ATL history rhymes and Hamilton "wins" killing Burr. A sitting VP still commits murder.
 
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