Being a 'Childless' President Was Once Seen as a Virtue

[Bucky]

https://www.bunkhistory.org/resources/being-a-childless-president-was-once-seen-as-a-virtue

Being a ‘Childless’ President Was Once Seen as a Virtue
Ask George Washington.
By Cassandra A. Good via The Atlantic

This criticism of political leaders who don’t have biological offspring would be a surprise to early generations of Americans, and not just because a third of our first 15 presidents, including George Washington, had no biological children. In fact, the absence of biological offspring was actually seen as a virtue in the 18th and 19th centuries, as Americans looked for leaders who could safeguard their fledgling republic.

A popular 1788 newspaper article praised Washington as the choice for America’s first president, partly on the grounds that “having no son,” he would not run the risk of “exposing us to the danger of an hereditary successor.” This was, after all, a country that had just overthrown a king and turned against the very notion of inherited power. Washington even considered emphasizing this point in his first inaugural address. In a draft, he noted that he had not had “my blood … transmitted or my name perpetuated by the endearing, though sometimes seducing channel of immediate offspring.” He continued, “I have no child for whom I could wish to make a provision—no family to build in greatness upon my Country’s ruins.” In other words, rest assured, fellow Americans; Washington didn’t have a son who might end democracy before it could truly take hold by seizing the presidency after him. (Descendants of a Black man named West Ford believe that Washington was his father, but historians, including those at Mount Vernon, argue that no documentation supports this.)

The perceived benefit of a president without direct descendants extended to foreign affairs. John Adams recognized this in a 1787 letter to Thomas Jefferson when he worried that European powers might want to build domestic alliances with the children of American leaders, thus allowing hereditary power to take root in the new nation. “If General Washington had a Daughter,” he wrote, “I firmly believe, she would be demanded in Marriage by one of the Royal Families of France or England, perhaps by both.” A son, in turn, “would be invited to come a courting to Europe.” The absence of progeny was a boon to America’s independence.

If you have online access to articles from The Atlantic magazine, you can read the whole article.

Fortunately, with our republican traditions, we don't have to worry about Kamala and Doug trying to set up Cole and Ella as future generalissimos. Which is not to we don't have a few loonies in America with dynastic intentions. (*cough*DonJr*cough*) Excuse me, I must have a Froggy in my throat (*cough*BobJr*cough*)