A History of the Presidency

Presidents: A Reference History, (2002) by Henry F. Graff

Jefferson in retirement became famous as the Sage of Monticello occupied with the planning and the building of the University of Virginia. James Monroe in his post-presidency spent much of his public energy in lawsuits against the federal government. He claimed real and imagined expense-money as due him for his services abroad as a diplomat. Although Congress twice voted him substantial sums, he continued to feel short-changed. After an unhappy presidency full of frustrated plans and hopes, John Quincy Adams returned to Washington as a member of the House of Representatives and served with distinction for seventeen years. He earned there the reputation of "Old Man Eloquent," the most insistent antislavery voice in Congress. John Tyler at the request of the Virginia legislature accepted the chairmanship of the "peace convention" in Washington in 1861, seeking to find a way out of the secession crisis. When the Senate ignored the convention's proposals, Tyler became himself a secessionist and won election to the Confederate House of Representatives.

Retired presidents, despite the variety of their pursuits, have shown that exercising power leaves an The presidency's burdens are understood and shared by those who have held the seat of power. Harry Truman (left) and Herbert Hoover, though members of opposing political parties, enjoyed a warm friendship and are shown at the White House during Truman's term. CORBIS

Taft in his after-presidency gave a series of instructive lectures on the office at Columbia University, published as Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (1916). Yet his heart and mind were bent on returning to the judicial bench where he had once sat. Indeed, in Taft's days in Roosevelt's cabinet, the president, speaking in the manner of a fortune-teller had one evening teased him and Mrs. Taft: "I see a man standing before me weighing about 350 pounds. There is something hanging over his head. I cannot make out what it is. At one time it looks like the presidency—then again it looks like the chief justiceship." With unfeigned glee Mrs. Taft shouted: "Make it the presidency." "Make it the chief justice-ship," responded Taft in a quiet voice. In 1921 President Harding appointed Taft to be chief justice. Taft is still the only man to have served in two of the three highest offices in the land. And drawing on the immense prestige this singular fact appeared to entitle him to, he continually irritated Harding and Harding's successor, Calvin Coolidge, with suggestions respecting vacancies to be filled on the Supreme Court.

Hoover, in his long post-presidency, rendered valuable service on two national commissions he headed to streamline the operation of the federal government. Nixon, the only president forced to resign his office, spent his last years writing not only his memoirs but also a series of works on foreign affairs. They were planned both as instruction to the public and to help rehabilitate their author's reputation by highlighting what he regarded as his expertness on international politics. Carter kept a high profile as an ex-president. Having created the Carter Center in Atlanta, a nonprofit organization to promote peace and human rights, he took on various projects including helping to encourage and supervise elections in other countries. Through the Jimmy Carter Project of Habitat for Humanity International, he and his wife, Rosalynn, helped construct houses in New York City slums.