Surprise!: The Constitution May Favor Oldsters Over Youngsters When It Comes to High Office
The Constitution of the United States delivers an important and surprising revelation about the founders of this noble Republic and their attitudes toward advancing old age and high public office.
As a matter of record, the Revolutionary minds who gathered in Philadelphia in 1787 to lay out a daring new scheme of government felt special regard for the wisdom and experience of the Constitutional Convention’s most elderly leaders, while worrying more practically about the impulsive inexperience of some of the young hotheads who seemed to nourish undisguised appetites for quick grabs at power and glory.
The elder statesman most conspicuously admired by his colleagues during the drafting of the new Constitution, Dr. Benjamin Franklin, had already achieved international fame for scientific, political and literary achievements. At 81, he had reached the same age as our current president in an era when any sort of vigorous longevity counted as vastly less common. The second oldest delegate at the Constitutional Convention, 66-year-old Roger Sherman, also played a pivotal role in the proceedings. At a critical moment, he prevented the collapse of the Convention by crafting the crucial “Connecticut Compromise” that established different schemes for legislative representation in the two houses of Congress, protecting the interests of both small and more populous states. Sherman also counted as the only individual to sign all four of the key founding documents of the United States between 1774 and 1787—the Articles of Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the Constitution.
The idea that such venerated figures should be distrusted due to suspicions of cognitive impairment or failing memory, would have seemed ridiculous to their younger colleagues among the Founders, who instinctively valued the wisdom and wide-ranging experience they associated with advanced age.
That is why our Charter of Liberty contains no maximum age restrictions at all on choosing elders for powerful public positions while establishing the minimum ages required for any and all candidates for president and vice president, as well as for members of both the House and the Senate.
These qualifications, including residency requirements for the same offices, provide insight into the Founders' underlying purpose in establishing such restrictions. To qualify for membership in the House of Representatives, an aspirant must have ”attained to the age of twenty-five years and been for seven years a Citizen of the United States.” A would-be Senator would “have attained to the age of thirty years and been nine years a citizen of the United States.” Finally, to run for the nation’s highest office, the Constitution demands that a presidential candidate must be a “natural born citizen” who has “attained to the age of thirty-five years and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.”
Joseph Story, a Supreme Court Justice for 33 years and the most influential early interpreter of the Constitution, explained the residency requirements as a means of assuring that the public would have the chance to become familiar with any candidate’s personality and achievements before he sought their votes. In 1833, he wrote that the Constitution sought to ensure that “the people may have a full opportunity to know his character and merits, and that he may have mingled in the duties, and felt the interests, and understood the principles, and nourished the attachments, belonging to every citizen in a republican government.”
The important priority isn’t just in allowing the populace to become familiar with the candidate but for the aspiring office-holder in the process to understand and appreciate the people he sought to lead. In that context, he needed to live among them as equals for some significant period after emergence into adulthood: hence the ascending age requirements for various federal offices.
Regarding the presidency, Story observed that “considering the nature of the duties, the extent of the information, and the solid wisdom and experience required in the executive department, no one can reasonably doubt the propriety of some qualification of age.”
This powerful preference for older individuals didn’t prevent relative youngsters from making profound contributions to the new nation’s establishment. Thomas Jefferson had “attained” only the age of 33—too young to be president—when he wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776; Alexander Hamilton had reached only 32 when Washington appointed him Secretary of the Treasury and the ambitious young man took over the reconstruction of the new Republic’s entire financial system.
No one would suggest, then or now, that Benjamin Franklin and Roger Sherman counted as more worthy than Jefferson and Hamilton because of the relatively tender years of that later duo as they first rose to power. But the distinctive contributions of each of these individuals affirm that character, ability and experience matter more than any tally of birthdays or calendar years.
Ironically, Joe Biden’s own journey connected both young and old extremes, when our youngest US Senator became, after more than fifty years in politics, our oldest president. Despite the minimum Constitutional age of 30, Biden first won election as Senator from Delaware in 1972 at age 29, celebrating his November 20th birthday just weeks before his official term of office began on January 3, 1973. He became the oldest chief executive to enter his first term of office (at 79) and will set new records if re-elected shortly after his 82nd birthday.
As the upcoming campaign unfolds, arguments will develop on all sides as to whether youthful energy or acquired wisdom provide more advantages to a president, or whether there is even a meaningful difference between President Trump’s capacities at age 77, compared to Biden’s additional burden of four more years to age. But this remains an issue on which the Constitution itself, the simultaneous handiwork of some very old and very young, extraordinary individuals, doesn’t take an explicit or definitive position.
Well done, Michael, thank you. With respect, the attention to Biden's age is a red herring, meant only to distract our attention to the problem, which is not age but competence. Joe Biden, in my view, has never been competent. From his earliest days he was an avowed racist, choses black over white because they are black, said Strom Thurman (who was a KKK member) was his mentor, bragged in one campaign that his state, Delaware, fought for the South, and more. Henry Kissinger at 99 years was far more competent than Biden would hope to be. If only someone with the competence and wisdom of Franklin would rise.