Leaving the job at fifty-something leaves a long time to fill. A few of them filled it better than they filled the office.
1Jimmy CarterSpent four decades monitoring elections, building houses and chasing Guinea worm, and won a Nobel for it in 2002.
2Theodore RooseveltShot a safari's worth of specimens in Africa, ran again in 1912 and then nearly died mapping an unknown Amazon river.
3John Quincy AdamsWent back to the House for seventeen years and argued the Amistad case before the Supreme Court.
4William Howard TaftThe only president to become Chief Justice, a job he wanted far more than the one before it.
5Herbert HooverRan the postwar famine relief effort in Europe and two commissions that reorganised the federal government.
6Ulysses S. GrantToured the world to enormous crowds, went broke, and wrote a memoir on his deathbed that is still read.
7Bill ClintonBuilt a foundation and a second career as a global fundraiser and disaster envoy.
8Thomas JeffersonFounded the University of Virginia and designed its buildings in his seventies.
9James MadisonRetired to Montpelier, helped Jefferson build his university and edited his own convention notes for publication.
10George WashingtonWent home to Mount Vernon and made the peaceful handover of power the country's founding habit.
11Barack ObamaWrote a bestselling memoir, built a production company and stayed a fixture of public life.
12John AdamsSpent his last years writing an extraordinary correspondence with Jefferson, and died on the same Fourth of July.
Comments 1
He left office at 50 and went down an uncharted Amazon tributary. Jimmy Carter's four decades included Habitat for Humanity and a Nobel in 2002: https://youpick.best/articles/theodore-roosevelt-ranked-many-ways
YP
ypb-teamAug 21
