# Has an incumbent US President ever voluntarily not run for a second term? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 4, 2007, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467 "2007-07-04T05:01:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![FlyingCowOfDoom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyingcowofdoom/32/21776_2.png) [@FlyingCowOfDoom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingCowOfDoom)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/1 "2007-07-04T05:01:40Z")
Have any of the US Presidents ever, upon completing his first term, simply not run for a second? TIA! –FCOD ---
**Author:** ![E.Thorp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@E.Thorp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E.Thorp)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/2 "2007-07-04T05:03:00Z")
LBJ opted not to run in 1968. ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/3 "2007-07-04T05:08:21Z")
John Tyler sort of didn’t. He was thrown out of his party for vetoing the charter for the Bank of the United States. With no party to run for, and virtually no support he withdrew his candidacy in August. Whether that means he voluntarily didn’t run I’ll leave to the OP to decide. A similar thing happened to Buchanan. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/4 "2007-07-04T05:09:05Z")
James K. Polk: > **[James K. Polk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Polk)** > > James Knox Polk (/poʊk/; November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th president of the United States, serving from 1845 to 1849. A protégé of Andrew Jackson and a member of the Democratic Party, he was an advocate of American expansionism and Jacksonian democracy. Polk saw Texas join the Union in his first year in office, one of the precipitating causes that soon led the U.S. into the Mexican–American War. The settlement of that war expanded American territory to the Pacific Ocean. During hi... > [@They Might Be Giants](#): > > In four short years he met his every goal > He seized the whole southwest from Mexico > Made sure the tariffs fell > And made the English sell the Oregon territory > He built an independent treasury > Having done all this he sought no second term > But precious few have mourned the passing of > Mister James K. Polk, our eleventh president > Young Hickory, Napoleon of the Stump ---
**Author:** ![Malodorous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e47774/32.png) [@Malodorous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malodorous)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/5 "2007-07-04T05:14:20Z")
Truman could’ve run in '52 after having served one term plus the partial term he inherited from FDR, but chose not to. ---
**Author:** ![WarmNPrickly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/d78d45/32.png) [@WarmNPrickly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WarmNPrickly)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/6 "2007-07-04T05:19:37Z")
Calvin Coolidge didn’t run in 1928. Not technically his second term, but it would have been his second elected term. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 5:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/7 "2007-07-04T05:38:47Z")
And, Theodore Roosevelt opted not to run for a second elected term in 1908 since his first term after succeeding McKinley was close to a full term. But he ran again in 1912. ---
**Author:** ![asterion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4da419/32.png) [@asterion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asterion)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/8 "2007-07-04T13:28:07Z")
[QUOTE=Malodorous] Truman could’ve run in '52 after having served one term plus the partial term he inherited from FDR, but chose not to. [/QUOTE] The most anyone can serve as President is 10 years (VP to President with less than two years left in the former President’s term plus 2 full terms of his own.) FDR died in 1945, meaning that Truman basically served two full terms from 1945-1953. The 22nd amendment was ratified in 1951. However, you are right that Truman was excluded from the 22nd amendment and could have run if he wanted to (or had done better in the primaries.) ---
**Author:** ![FlyingCowOfDoom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyingcowofdoom/32/21776_2.png) [@FlyingCowOfDoom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingCowOfDoom)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/9 "2007-07-04T15:13:57Z")
Thanks, everyone! –FCOD ---
**Author:** ![Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Public\_Animal\_No.9](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Public_Animal_No.9)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/10 "2007-07-04T15:29:21Z")
Going way back to the early- to mid-1800s, there were quite a few Presidents who did not run for a second term: Tyler, Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan all served only a single term (or less, in the case of Tyler,who took over for W.H. Harrison), and did not run for a second term. Fillmore replaced Taylor (who died in office in 1850), and ran again against Buchanan in 1856 (Fillmore skipped the 1852 election). Johnson, Hayes, and Arthur did not run for re-election, either. Good, brief summaries of the Presidents are available at the [Internet Public Library Presidents site](http://www.ipl.org/div/potus/). With it being Independence Day today, all the US Dopers should read them all! 😉 It seems that during earlier times it was considered poor form to presume you should be re-elected, and also poor form to actively campaign on your own behalf, even for your first term. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/11 "2007-07-04T18:31:16Z")
It’s difficult to give an unambiguous list of presidents who didn’t seek re-election, because of the different manner in which party nominations were determined in the Nineteenth Century. There were no primaries, and little occasion to “announce one’s candidacy” for a party nomination; indeed, open campaigning would have been considered gauche. Rather, one’s supporters would work behind the scenes to try to elect delegates at state conventions and sway delegates after they had been elected. Fillmore, Pierce, A. Johnson, and Arthur all failed to win their party’s nomination for either a full term or a second term, but in every case there were active movements on their behalf at the party convention, which they did not discourage. So in every case, by the standard of the time, one would have to say that they sought re-election. Tyler simply had no support in either party, so no movement on his behalf developed. There were three presidents, however, who stated their intention to serve only a single term upon taking office, never wavered, and never _allowed_ any movement on their behalf for renomination. The three were Polk, Buchanan, and Hayes. So the answer to the OP is an unambiguous “yes”. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-an-incumbent-us-president-ever-voluntarily-not-run-for-a-second-term/410467/12 "2007-07-04T20:29:57Z")
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