Nixon defeated Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 presidential election and took office in January 1969. Though reluctant to be succeeded by a Nixon appointee, Warren declined to withdraw his letter of resignation. He believed that withdrawing the letter would be "a crass admission that he was resigning for political reasons." Nixon and Warren jointly agreed that Warren would retire in June 1969 to ensure that the Court would have a chief justice throughout the 1968 term and to allow Nixon to focus on other matters in the first months of his presidency. Nixon did not solicit Warren's opinion regarding the next chief justice and ultimately appointed the conservative federal appellate judge Warren E. Burger. Warren later regretted his decision to retire and reflected, "If I had ever known what was going to happen to this country and this Court, I never would have resigned. They would have had to carry me out of there on a plank." In addition, he later remarked on his retirement and on the Warren Court, "I would like the Court to be remembered as the people's court."