Twenty-Second Amendment

ALTHOUGH A PRECEDENT had been set in the 19th century that presidents of the United States should only serve two terms in office, Franklin D. Roosevelt ignored this tradition in 1940. As a result, many in Congress felt that the time had come to make the long-standing precedent a firm constitutional requirement. Therefore, on March 24, 1947, the Twenty-Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was proposed, limiting the president to two terms in office. It also set a limit for any president who serves more than two years of another's presidency to one term in office.

Within four years of its proposal, on February 27, 1951, the amendment had been ratified by more than the required three-fourths of the states. While the creation of the tradition of two terms in office has often been attributed to George Washington, in his 1796 Farewell Address, it was actually Thomas Jefferson, in 1788, who first expressed concern over the ease with [Page 802]which the presidency could become a lifetime position. Franklin D. Roosevelt broke this tradition when he decided to run not only for a third term in 1940, but for a fourth term in 1944.

The amendment was a direct result of Roosevelt's four terms in office. The Republican-led Congress proposed a constitutional amendment limiting the president to two terms in office. The rationale for the amendment was based on the belief that without term limits the presidency could turn into a dictatorship. Democrats, however, felt that it was an attempt to reach beyond the grave to admonish Roosevelt. The extreme partisan nature of this issue was barely hidden behind the veil of constitutional debate, which never focused on the fact that the delegates at the Constitutional Convention did not include any eligibility limitations on the presidency in the U.S. Constitution.

Nevertheless, the House passed the presidential term limit amendment by a vote of 285 to 121 on February 6, 1947. The Senate passed the amendment on March 12, 1947 by a vote of 59 to 23. In both the House and the Senate, Republicans passed the amendment unanimously, while the yea votes from the Democrats consisted mainly of southerners.

The amendment was then sent for ratification by three-fourths of the states. It took 41 states approximately four years to ratify this amendment. By the end of 1947, the 18 states that had ratified the amendment were mostly Republican strongholds. From this time until February 27, 1951, the remaining 18 states needed to reach the three-fourths requirement were obtained, mostly from conservative Democratic southern states.

The issue of presidential term limits was visited again during Ronald Reagan and William J. Clinton's terms in office. During Reagan's presidency, many Republicans considered repealing the amendment to allow him to serve a third term. However, this idea was quickly dropped when it became clear that Reagan would not be a viable presidential candidate in another election. At the end of Clinton's second term in office, there was also discussion about the possibility of repealing the amendment. However, Clinton supported modifying the amendment in order to allow individuals to serve more than two terms in office as long as they were non-consecutive. However, this has also not been seriously considered by the U.S. Congress.

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