Whereas all these concurring voices, where patriotism, experience, and reason bear testimony, have additional value at a moment when the country is looking anxiously to a reform of the civil service, for the plain reason that the peril from the Chief Magistrate, so long as he is exposed to temptation, surpasses that from any other quarter, and thus the first stage in this much-desired reform is the One-Term principle, to the end that the President, who exercises the appointing power, reaching into all parts of the country and holding in subserviency a multitudinous army of office-holders, shall be absolutely without motive or inducement to employ it for any other purpose than the public good:
And whereas the character of Republican Institutions requires that the Chief Magistrate shall be above all suspicion of using the machinery of which he is the official head to promote his own personal aims: Therefore,
Be it resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, &c., That the following Article is hereby proposed as an Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, shall be valid, to all intents and purposes, as part of the Constitution; to wit:
Article ——.
Sec. 1. No person who has once held the office of President of the United States shall be thereafter eligible to that office.
Sec. 2. This Amendment shall not take effect until after the 4th March, 1873.
On motion of Mr. Sumner, the resolution was ordered to lie on the table, and be printed.