To Washington, though, the damage was already done. At sixty-four, he wanted to retire, and this time, no one talked him out of it. The Constitution prescribed term limits of four years, but it did not restrict how many terms could be served; in choosing to stop at two, Washington set a precedent that would endure into the twentieth century, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt went for a third. Once again, he would shock the world by giving up power, overseeing a peaceful transfer from one systematically elected official to another.
