Obama Hates Medical Marijuana And He Doesn't Care What The States Think

[DeistPaladin]

The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 which limits the president to two terms. Unless you're saying that Washington proposed the idea, but it didn't take hold until long after he was dead.

It was by action that he established the precedent. To the best of my knowledge, it became a tradition that only FDR broke, and that was due to the economic crisis followed by WWII.

The tradition was a powerful one in the American psyche even without a formal amendment. Anyone seeking to break that rule faced the "oh, so you think you're better than Washington, huh?" factor. Teddy Roosevelt ran for a third term unsuccessfully and suffered an attempted assassination by a "no-more-than-two-terms" fanatic.

Washington also sought to restrain the powers of his office in other ways. He would only veto a bill if he could argue it was unconstitutional. Part of the outrage against later President Jackson is that he was AFAIK the first president to veto bills just because he wanted to. He was called by some "king Jackson" and depicted in cartoons as ruling with a scepter in the shape of a veto letter.

Those more versed in American history can correct me if I'm wrong on any of this. It's what I remember from my high school days.