Former Presidents

Abstract

When the framers of the Constitution rejected a proposal by Alexander Hamilton that the president be elected to a lifetime term, they unwittingly created an unofficial office: the ex-presidency. At noon on January 20, 1993, George Bush became the nation's thirty-second former president. (Eight presidents died while still in office.) Collectively, Bush's thirty-one predecessors had lived more than three hundred years after leaving thewhite House, including four—Richard Nixon, Gerald R. Ford, Jimmy Carter, and Ronald Reagan—who were former presidents during the entire Bush presidency. (See Table 32-1.) Bush's addition to their ranks meant that from January 20,1993, until Nixon's death on April 22, 1994, therewere five living former presidents. Only once before had that many former presidents been alive at the same time: Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Franklin Pierce, Millard Fillmore, and James Buchanan all lived between March 4, 1861, when Buchanan left office, and January 18,1862, when Tyler died.