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deadpresidents · 1 day

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Which President, in your opinion, was the most reluctant to seek the position? Which wound up hating it the most by the end of his term?

I am a strong believer that nobody truly becomes President of the United States "reluctantly". That's not exactly the kind of job that seeks you, especially the modern Presidency.

For a significant slice of American history, many of the people nominated for President acted as if they were being called upon to run when, behind-the-scenes, they were very active in building their campaigns and corralling supporters. Until the 20th Century it was frowned upon to openly run for the Presidency, but almost all of the Presidents wanted the gig.

I'd say that George Washington was probably more reluctant than most of his successors and likely would have preferred retiring to Mount Vernon after the Revolution, but I think he also recognized that he was the guy who needed to be the President that set the precedents. I think Ulysses S. Grant would have been perfectly happy to not be President, but once he was elected in 1868 he also wanted to keep the job. He even tried to run for a third term in 1880.

That 1880 election might have been the one case where the winner -- James Garfield -- genuinely wasn't interested in the Presidency at that point. He had gone to the Republican National Convention to support fellow Ohioan John Sherman (and defeat Grant's hopes for a third term) and gained some major attention after giving a well-received speech placing Sherman's name in nomination. When the candidacies of Sherman and James G. Blaine -- another anti-Grant candidate -- stalled, Garfield became a compromise choice and was eventually nominated on the 36th ballot. Garfield was apparently legitimately shocked by the events leading to him leaving Chicago as the GOP nominee.

By most accounts, William Howard Taft was far more interested in a potential seat on the Supreme Court than becoming President. At heart he was a judge and believed himself to be better suited for the judiciary than the Executive Branch. But Taft turned down three offers by Theodore Roosevelt to be appointed to the Supreme Court (in 1902, 1903, and 1906) because he felt obligated to complete his work as Governor-General of the Philippines and then Secretary of War. But Taft's wife desperately wanted him to become President and by the time of President Roosevelt's third offer of a seat on the Court, Taft was already being talked about as Roosevelt's hand-picked successor in the White House. And, as with all other Presidents, once he had a taste for the job, he didn't want to give it up, running for re-election in 1912 against his former friend, Roosevelt.

Gerald Ford is the only other President who hadn't spent a significant portion of his political career with his eyes on the White House. Ford spent nearly a quarter-century in the House of Representatives and his main ambition was to be Speaker of the House, but Republicans weren't able to win control of the House when Ford was in Congressional leadership positions. But even with Ford being a creature of Congress, he did attempt to put himself forward as a nominee for the Vice Presidency, first in 1960 and then in 1968, and Nixon kicked the tires on picking him as his running mate in 1960. No one wants to be Vice President without seeing it as a potential stepping stone to the Presidency, particularly at that point in history before Vice Presidents were empowered with some real influence within the Administrations they served in.

As for who wound up hating it by the end of their time in office, I think it's safe to say that John Quincy Adams didn't shed too many tears when he was defeated for re-election in 1828. And I'm sure he wouldn't use the word "hate", but nobody can convince me that George W. Bush wasn't thoroughly ready to escape Washington by late-2007. There were times in 2008 when he seemed like he just wanted to hold a snap election like they have in parliamentary systems and go home to Texas. If some Presidential insider published a book that said that Bush asked if he could just give the keys to the White House to Barack Obama in July 2008, I wouldn't be the least bit shocked.

On the other hand, if there were no term limits, Bill Clinton would have been running for President in every election since 1992 (and the crazy thing is that he's still younger than both of the presumptive 2024 nominees). I'm kind of surprised that he didn't make an effort to repeal the 22nd Amendment in the past 20 years. Clinton loved being President and was trying to find something Presidential to do until minutes before his successor was inaugurated in 2001.

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icarusbetide · 2 days

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Loser submissive omega take: Washington was a unifying, noble, non-partisan leader to his very last breath.

Chad sigma male take: Like most people, Washington did not live up to his ideals and by the end of his life was a disgruntled, visibly Federalist peepaw shaking his cane in the air because he didn't like the state of the country or the Democratic Republicans people running it. Joanne Freeman did this great impression of late-life Washington clenching his fist going "We gotta get Federalists into the Virginian legislature" and it's canon in my book. The man learned that James Madison was backing James Monroe for Governor of Virginia a literal day before his death and got so pissed that his secretary Tobias Lear went "pls chill".

He requested me to read to him the debates of the Virginia Assembly on the election of a Senator and a Governor; and on hearing Mr Madison’s observations respecting Mr Monroe, he appeared much affected and spoke with some degree of asperity on the subject; which I endeavoured to moderate, as I always did on such occasions. the "as I always did on such occasions" makes me think that this wasn't a one-time thing and washington frequently went on rants about monroe and the jeffersonians.

#i am convinced that washington being attacked by democratic-republicans did a lot for his relationship with hamilton #they were like “twinnn where have you beennn”#father son bonding activity: hate on jeffersonian newspapers #george washington #amrev fandom #amrev #historical hamilton #tobias lear #james monroe

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blueiskewl · 3 days

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George Washington's 250-Year-Old Cherries Found Buried at Mount Vernon

Archaeologists found something incredibly rare in the cellar of George Washington's home at Mount Vernon: Two intact jars of cherries buried in the basement of the first U.S. president's house.

Nick Beard, project archeologist at Mount Vernon, said on Tuesday that he had been excavating the basement "for quite a while" when he saw the lip of one of the jars in November.

When the bottle started to peek out from the earth, he proceeded carefully but said he didn't think it would turn out to be anything out of the ordinary, adding that it's common to find wine bottles and glasses at the site about 15 miles south of Washington, D.C.

In fact, Beard stepped away from the bottles to help on a more immediate project. Only when he returned several weeks later did he realize what he discovered.

As he worked, more and more glass became exposed. He tried to wiggle the glass out of its resting place, but when he did his fingers got a little wet.

That's when he noticed whatever he was working on was full of liquid.

"Which means if it's that full of liquid then it has to be intact enough to hold that liquid," said Beard. "That's not common, so that immediately got me excited."

Uncovered jars reveal centuries-old cherries

When Beard further revealed the jars, he called other archeologists to come check his findings.

The jars were fully excavated on March 22. The cherries were removed from the bottles to help preserve the glass, but after April 30, the glass will be sent off for conservation. Its contents will be sent to a lab for analysis and be tested in a controlled environment by specialists, according to a press release from Mount Vernon.

"It's extraordinary," Jason Boroughs, principal archaeologist at Mount Vernon, saying something similar has only happened twice in Virginia in the past six decades:

The latest discovery is a part of the privately funded $40 million Mansion Revitalization Project at Mount Vernon.

What was in the jar?

Beard and Boroughs said that cherries and a mystery liquid were found in the jar. And the cherries, Boroughs said, actually look like cherries, even after hundreds of years.

"They're plump, they have flesh, they have pits and stems," Boroughs said. "They don't look as if they've been sitting in a bottle for 250 years, although they have."

The liquid inside even smelled like cherry blossoms, according to Mount Vernon.

The cherries in the bottles were probably dry when they were buried, Boroughs said.

While the archeologists know what the cherries are, the liquid is still a bit of a mystery.

Lily Carhart, curator of the preservation collections at Mount Vernon, said it's possible the groundwater got into the bottle after the cork that sealed it deteriorated.

The liquid still needs to be tested, Boroughs said. And there is a small possibility it could've been a type of alcohol, like a brandy or cognac.

Why were the cherries buried?

Enslaved laborers picked the cherries, wiped them off to avoid condensation and placed them into the jar. Then, that jar was corked and buried sometime between 1758 and 1776, when both George and Martha Washington were living at the home, according to Boroughs.

He added that the method would've kept the fruit inside the bottle preserved for up to a year. It was one of the most popular ways to preserve berries and its how folks in colonial America preserved food before there were refrigerators.

"It pretty much keeps them isolated and sealed from the atmosphere, from air and from fungus and other things that could attack" he said.

According to Boroughs, the cherries were supposed to be served on George Washington's dinner table, but instead were forgotten and buried under a brick floor that was placed in the 1770s, sealing its fate as a sort of a "time capsule."

Can you still eat the cherries?

"You would not want to put that close to your face," Carhart said about the cherries.

Boroughs said that it could actually be possible to eat them, but "nobody wants to try."

Why is this discovery significant?

Boroughs said the discovery is remarkable because he "can't count the number of times 18th-century food remains have been found intact" the way the cherries were.

"We're the first people to touch these objects since they were put in the ground by an enslaved person," Boroughs said.

While the discovery itself is incredible, the archeologist said the stories that can be uncovered from it are just as amazing.

"We think of these items sort of as the material bits of lives that we can recover from the ground," Boroughs said. "These bottles tell stories. They're attached to people who had real lives and if we know how to put the pieces together, we can piece together something about their lives."

Beard added that it feels "surreal" to have such an "immediate connection with the people that lived back then."

By Julia Gomez.

#George Washington's 250-Year-Old Cherries Found Buried at Mount Vernon #Mount Vernon #George Washington #ancient artifacts #archeology #archeolgst #history #history news

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lalaith999 · 1 day

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#amrev fandom #alexander hamilton #historical alexander hamilton #george washington #whamilton

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rebelwithacauze · 2 days

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Call it PRO -PALESTINE, PRO- LIFE OR ANTI WAR PROTESTS ,this my friend's is the era of the unstoppable Generation of resistance, #genz Just globalised the Intifada.Bidens and Netanyahu worse nightmare just went on overdrive.

#freepalestine #Stopisrael #gazagenocide #rafahmassacre #hamdsofrafah #gaza #palestine #Jerusalem #ceasefirenow #Iran #yemen #IDFterrorists #icj #globalstrikeforpalestine #globalintifida #revolution #genz #gotthis

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paranoid-artist · 3 days

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Doodles because I haven’t posted in a longggggg time👀

#art #historical art #louis xiv #george washington #napoleon #doodle #shitpostery

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arielleslipgloss · 2 months

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How to Reinvent Yourself!!

(none of these photos are mine!) “Pour yourself a drink, put on lipstick and pull yourself together.” - Elizabeth Taylor

Mindset!! This is one of the most important things that comes with reinventing yourself. Therefore that toxic, negative, insecure, and judgmental mindset has gotta go. Say hello to your new positive, secure, lavish, and uplifting mindset! Now, first thing you need to do is stop taking EVERYTHING so personally. Should you really be spending your whole day overthinking what this person says about you. NO! The only opinion that should matter when it comes to you, IS YOU. Next, think with a “so what?” type of mindset. Someone doesn’t like you? So what! Someone judges you? So what! Say so what, and move on. Lastly, take care of your mind!! You can’t create a whole new mindset if you don’t take care of your mind. So, heal whatever is making your mind stressed and fill your head with lots of good thoughts. You could compliment yourself, do shadow work, watch uplifting videos, just do whatever makes you feel good.

2. Set boundaries!! Not only should you set boundaries for yourself, but also for your relationships. Whether thats with a bf/gf, family members, or even friends. Whoever it is, they need to understand to not cross the line. Now, if they don’t understand then they obviously shouldn’t be around you. This year we are only surrounding ourselves around people who deserve to have access to us. Now, let’s talk about examples of having boundaries . First example, someone may be touching you in a way that makes you uncomfortable. For that reason you move a bit away from that person and clarify that they’re making you uncomfortable. If they call you selfish, so what? They need to understand to respect your boundaries. Second, someone is disrespecting you? Tell them that you don’t like their behavior and to stop. Last example, a stranger is using your belongings without your permission? Tell them that they should have asked and you don’t want them using your stuff. If any of these people don’t respect your boundaries, get them out of your life!!

3. Change the way you dress, talk, and walk!! I would like to clarify quickly, only do this if you want to. Moving on, I’ve learnt that slower walking and talking is better. Now I’m not saying to walk and talk in slow motion. Just slightly do it slower. This way, you can play attention to your behaviors more. It can be really important to observe yourself. Not only that but in a world moving fast, walking slow makes you stand out. Also make sure when you speak, it’s clear. That way people can understand you and what you’re saying. Finally, let’s go over the way you dress. Wear outfits that make you feel good, stylish, and fit you well. If you want to wear an outfit, don’t shy away. Wear it if it makes you feel happy! When you wear an outfit that makes you confident, the outfit is even cuter. Don’t forget, have fun with fashion and experiment with pieces.

4. Self-worth!! You need to understand that you’re an absolute BLESSING on this Earth. You are here for a reason and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. There is not a single flaw in you. You see your insecurities? Yeah, well someone out there has them too. Just because you have a few insecurities, doesn’t mean that should bring your value down. You should bring your value up and add taxes by realizing your worth.

“It is far better to be alone, than to be in bad company.” - George Washington

Love you dolls sm!! Remember to always wear a smile and stay pretty 💋

Pinterest: Arielleslipgloss

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ntls-24722 · 1 month

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Filbert Stuart, Presidential Affairs (1823-1825)

Oil on canvas, 97.5 in × 62.5 in

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@glitterfartsprinkle GET YOUR ACRYLICS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁😁

@ravewing as well bc you were the OP. sorry that papyrus undertale took your man

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badeyesightdog · 2 months

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#hamilton fanart #hamilton #alexander hamilton #hamilton musical #thomas jefferson #john laurens #george washington #eliza #elizabeth schuyler #amrev

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ravewing · 1 month

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what if the founding fathers were in hazbin hotel

#because you all loved my cambrian one so very much i present this to you #thomas jefferson #john adams #george washington #james madison #alexander hamilton #american revolution #amrev #history #hazbin hotel

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one-time-i-dreamt · 2 months

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I was somehow able to see ghosts as their younger selves (like 20s or so). One of them was George Washington, who asked me out and proceeded to age into how he’d look present day and screamed at me when I said no.

#dream #ghost #death tw #george washington

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alwaysbewoke · 2 months

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