Old and Older

News from North Dakota rarely makes headlines in New York, but last week we had an exception to that general rule when a majority of voters there voted to make it illegal for individuals to run for congressional office in that state if they will turn 81 before the end of the year before their term ends.

Why such a measure should be legal in the first place eludes me: it seems to me that, in a true democracy, citizens should be permitted to cast their ballots for whomever they wish without any artificial barriers set in place to prevent them from doing so. Of course, that opinion puts me out of sync with lots of our nation’s laws, for example those that require members of the House to be over twenty-five, members of the Senate to be over thirty, and the President to be thirty-five years of age or older. Nor are these instances of latter-day legislation that would have been foreign to the nation’s Founders: all these requirements are enshrined in the Constitution (click here, here, and here to read the texts), and so constitute restrictions to free and unfettered voting that could not even imaginably be set aside at all, let alone dispensed with easily or casually. But there are no upper limits, not in the Constitution and not at all (except now in North Dakota), to the age of candidates. Similarly, all fifty states (including North Dakota) have at least some lower, but not upper, limits on individuals who wish to run for state-wide office. Some of these are a bit surprising—the citizens of California, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Wisconsin, for example, can elect a teenager to be their governor as long as the candidate is at least eighteen years of age—but most are mostly what you’d expect. (To see a full table of minimum age limits for state-wide office in our country, click here.) Vermont is, and by far, the most liberal: there are no age limits on any state office other than the requirement that the governor be at least eighteen.

As far as I can tell, the basic principle seems to be that the Founders thought that it would be dangerous to elect someone to a federal or state-wide office who is too young successfully to bear the burden that comes with that position. On the other hand, the parallel thought—that a candidate could conceivably be too old successfully to serve—seems not to be part of our national culture. Until this week’s vote in North Dakota, that is. Of course, given the 1995 decision of the Supreme Court specifically denying states the right to set age restrictions for public office other than those mentioned in the Constitution, the new law in that state will certainly be tested in the courts. Still, it’s the idea itself I’d like to use this space this week to think through, the notion that individuals, regardless of their actual mental acuity, level of insight, or professional experience, can simply be too old to serve in the Congress. Or, by extension, in any elected position if a state passes legislation to that effect.

Given the fact that it is inconsonant with the Supreme Court decision mentioned above, this new law in North Dakota was destined to be contentious anyway. But how much the more so is it going to be a hot-button issue—in North Dakota and in the other forty-nine states as well—given the degree to which the age of the presumptive candidates for President is clearly going to be an issue in the months leading up to Election Day and is already such an issue. President Biden, as everybody who ever reads a newspaper knows, is eighty-one years old. At seventy-eight, Donald J. Trump is roughly the same age. There are surely lots of surprises still to come in the months leading up to the election, but it will come as a surprise to no one at all that the age of both candidates is going to be discussed endlessly. And all of that talk is going to be about the supposition that there is such a thing as being too old to serve effectively—and that that supposition is rooted specifically in the age of the candidates and not in their level of ability, skill, or talent. 

The whole concept of being too old to serve is—at least from a classical point of view—a strange one. Scripture—and particularly in the Book of Proverbs—could not be clearer that old age is not a curse that devolves upon the elderly as punishment for having lived too long, but rather a blessing and a reward. Nor is it difficult to justify that concept of old age as a blessing because the older people become, the more likely they are to have entire lifetimes of experience guiding them forward, as well as a lifetimes of learning, lifetimes of interacting with others, and lifetimes of making mistakes and learning from them. In other words, the idea that merely passing a certain age means ipso facto that one is no longer fit to lead could not possibly be less in sync with our classical sources. And yet that is the law in North Dakota as of last week!

Consider, for example, the famous verse in Proverbs (16:31) that remarks that silver hair, instead of being something to be feared or regretted as a sign of decline, is to be acclaimed as “a crown of glory.” The word for “silver hair” in that verse, seivah, should be familiar to students of Torah as well: in one of its most famous passages, Leviticus depicts God as commanding the faithful Israelite to rise before the silver-haired individual, the seivah, and then continues on to command as well that the faithful show the deepest respect to the elderly as an expression of their wish to be seen as God-fearing people.  Read in each other’s light, these two passages have a clear and specific lesson to teach: with age can come wisdom, insight, and an enhanced ability to lead well…and that turning away from such people merely because of their age is counterproductive, even self-destructive, behavior. Youth is impetuousness, whereas old age is deliberation and thoughtfulness . Youth is eagerness, whereas old age is reticence. Youth is self-absorbed, whereas old age is focused—if the individual in question has spent the years of a life acquiring wisdom—on the public weal, on the good of society, on the needs of others. Youth is worry rooted in anxiety, whereas old age is calm born of resignation and acceptance. Obviously, not every old person falls into that category. Neither does every young person. But the idea that some specific individual should be disqualified for public service solely because he or she has reached a certain age—that idea should be anathema for people who seek to be led by the wise rather the reckless.

In ancient times, great philosophers wrote whole books about the merits and virtues of old age. Of them all, the one that seems the most on point to read or reread during this presidential election would be Cicero’s short (but truly great) work, On Old Age. You can read the whole thing in a very readable English translation by clicking here,  or, for just a few dollars, you can buy the still-very-readable translation of Evelyn Shuckbergh, a scholar of classical literature who lived in the second half of the nineteenth century. (An earlier translation by one James Logan was actually published by Benjamin Franklin, thus making it the first classical text to be published in translation in North America.) In his work, written just a year before his death, Cicero discusses the gifts and troubles that the aging process brings along in its inevitable wake to all who survive their own youths. His comments are trenchant and more than accessible. As a result, there are lots of passages to consider, but I’d like to offer here just one that is specifically concerned with the relationship between old age and the ability to lead well:

Those who allege that old age is devoid of useful activity are like those who would say that the pilot does nothing in the sailing of his ship, because, while others are climbing the masts, or running about the gangways, or working at the pumps, he sits quietly in the stern and simply holds the tiller. He may not be doing what younger members of the crew are doing, but what he does is better and much more important. It is not by muscle, speed, or physical dexterity that great things are achieved, but by reflection, force of character, and judgment; in these qualities old age is usually not poorer, but is even richer.

Is Joe Biden too old to be our President? Is Donald Trump, only a few years his junior? In my opinion, the question itself should be shelved. Obviously, old age brings some early-onset senescence and its attendant incapacity. But there are others whose older years feature insights born of experience and wisdom rooted in a lifetime of learning from others. Supposing that Joseph Biden and Donald Trump are their respective parties’ nominees, the decision whom to choose should be rooted in their policies, their experience, and their character. The question of age, and specifically when considered independent of ability, should be deemed wholly irrelevant.