During his two terms as President of America, George Washington established many policies and traditions that lasted into the twenty-first century, such as four-year presidential terms and the rule that no president could serve more than two terms, except Franklin D. Roosevelt.
But Roosevelt had special reasons for being elected president four times: first the Great Depression and Prohibition, then the world war. Yet under the 1951 amendment to the United States Constitution, no one could serve as president for more than two terms, nor could a former president run for office again.
After a constitutional amendment, there would be a national referendum. The Fifth Constitution no longer made Napoleon First Consul for life, but neither did it specify that he could not be reelected, or how many terms he could serve. It was as if ten years constituted a term. Georgiana thought that was far better than four-year terms.
When governments changed over, projects invested in by the previous administration often produced no results and were then shelved. It was simply a waste of taxpayers' money.
Bonaparte dreamed of leaving a mark in history that belonged to him alone. That mark did not necessarily have to be material, like canals or palaces; it could also be something intangible. Most importantly, he did not have time to keep wrangling over the system.
Abolishing the slave trade meant eliminating an industry and, with it, a source of revenue. Victories for idealists could only happen occasionally. In the past, Quesnay and his group of idealistic agronomists had also won, only to bring about economic turmoil in France. If Napoleon had founded a new government himself, things might have been much easier, but while inheriting the legacy of the kings of France, he also had to bear the debts they had left behind,