“I am deeply sensible of the honor done me by the American people in thus expressing their confidence in what I have done and have tried to do,” Roosevelt began. When he took the oath of office on March 4, 1905, he would consider it the beginning of his second full term as president. He wouldn’t run for a third. He could have. But he was riled over the insinuations and sometimes public insults about his tight grip on power, the command he had over the Republican Party. So he stated in the most definite terms that he would relinquish his hold: “Under no circumstances will I be a candidate for
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