There were few historical examples of military leaders willingly giving up power. And to the contrary, they were conscious of the relatively recent example of Oliver Cromwell, who a century earlier had led the way in establishing an English republic, only to become a dictator who passed power to his inept son. Washington owned a biography of Cromwell; Madison put in his copybook some damning lines about the man by Alexander Pope; and Adams referred to him frequently, writing once that “there never was a greater self deceiver than Oliver Cromwell.”39
