The Founders never planned for a post-presidency. Or if they did, they thought of Cincinnatus returning to the plow, his civic duties done, as President Washington retired to Mount Vernon in 1797 when his term ended.
In Washington’s final illness, doctors applied leeches. Modern medicine – including the innovative and successful treatment for brain cancer that Jimmy Carter received in 2015 – has invented a post-presidency, and the question is how to occupy it.
