Michael Barone:
The United States has just had three consecutive eight-year presidencies, and it’s only the second time in history that that’s happened. The only other such moment came on March 4, 1825, 192 years ago.
That’s a bit surprising, given the strong example George Washington’s two terms as president set and the rule established by the 22nd Amendment, adopted after Franklin Roosevelt won third and fourth terms in wartime, imposing a two-term limit. It owes something to the tragic happenstance that the four presidents who were assassinated might well have completed two terms otherwise.
There are some striking contrasts between the 24 years that ended in 1825 and the 24 years ending with the inauguration of Donald Trump. The three eight-year presidents then — Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe — were Virginians who were, despite some tussles, political allies and members of the same political party. Their houses were just a day’s ride then (an hour’s drive today) from one another.
The last years of Monroe’s administration were dubbed by historians as the Era of Good Feelings. The opposition Federalist party didn’t run a candidate in the 1820 election and held only a handful of seats in Congress.
No one would call any large part of the past 24 years an era of good feelings. Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama were each succeeded by a president of the other party. Parties opposing the president had majorities in the House of Representatives for 14 years and in the Senate for eleven and a half years of the 24-year period. And the presidents were reelected with just 49.2, 50.7 and 51.1 percent of the vote, respectively.
Clinton was impeached in his second term. Bush was administered an electoral “thumping” in the midterm election during his second term, and Obama received similar treatment in 2010 and 2014. Although Clinton and Bush refrained from blaming their problems on their predecessors, Obama stopped doing so only as his second term was nearing its end.
But there are similarities to the pair of three consecutive eight-year presidencies, as well. The so-called Era of Good Feelings followed a war as divisive and inconclusive as the Iraq War. The War of 1812 inspired threats of secession by New Englanders and is celebrated by Canadians as a victory. Americans took solace only from the treaty negotiated by John Quincy Adams and the victory won in New Orleans by Andrew Jackson after the treaty was signed but before the news crossed the ocean.
Congress was also deeply split back then. It was over the issue of slavery in the territories. So there was a compromise in 1820 whereby Missouri was admitted into the union as a slave state and Maine, detached from Massachusetts, was admitted as a free state. The dispute was “like a fire bell in the night,” wrote Thomas Jefferson, “the knell of the Union.” He continued, “It is hushed indeed for the moment, but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence.” It would ring again, more loudly, four decades later.
Obamas next place of residence should have bars on the windows