Amendment XXII
Presidential Term Limits
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1. No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. But this Article shall not apply to any person holding the office of President, when this Article was proposed by the Congress, and shall not prevent any person who may be holding the office of President, or acting as President, during the term within which this Article becomes operative from holding the office of President or acting as President during the remainder of such term.
2. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States within seven years from the date of its submission to the States by the Congress.
Ratified: February 21, 1947
The 22nd Amendment, which sets the presidential two-term limit, was proposed on March 21, 1947.
| # | State | Date | * |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Maine | Mar 31, 1947 | |
| 2 | Michigan | Mar 31, 1947 | |
| 3 | Iowa | Apr 1, 1947 | |
| 4 | Kansas | Apr 1, 1947 | |
| 5 | New Hampshire | Apr 1, 1947 | |
| 6 | Delaware | Apr 2, 1947 | |
| 7 | Illinois | Apr 3, 1947 | |
| 8 | Oregon | Apr 3, 1947 | |
| 9 | Colorado | Apr 12, 1947 | |
| 10 | California | Apr 15, 1947 | |
| 11 | New Jersey | Apr 15, 1947 | |
| 12 | Vermont | Apr 15, 1947 | |
| 13 | Ohio | Apr 16, 1947 | |
| 14 | Wisconsin | Apr 16, 1947 | |
| 15 | Pennsylvania | Apr 29, 1947 | |
| 16 | Connecticut | May 21, 1947 | |
| 17 | Missouri | May 22, 1947 | |
| 18 | Nebraska | May 23, 1947 | |
| 19 | Virginia | Jan 28, 1948 | |
| 20 | Mississippi | Feb 12, 1948 | |
| 21 | New York | Mar 9, 1948 | |
| 22 | South Dakota | Jan 21, 1949 | |
| 23 | North Dakota | Feb 25, 1949 | |
| 24 | Louisiana | May 17, 1950 | |
| 25 | Montana | Jan 25, 1951 | |
| 26 | Indiana | Jan 29, 1951 | |
| 27 | Idaho | Jan 30, 1951 | |
| 28 | New Mexico | Feb 12, 1951 | |
| 29 | Wyoming | Feb 12, 1951 | |
| 30 | Arkansas | Feb 15, 1951 | |
| 31 | Georgia | Feb 17, 1951 | |
| 32 | Tennessee | Feb 20, 1951 | |
| 33 | Texas | Feb 22, 1951 | |
| 34 | Nevada | Feb 26, 1951 | |
| 35 | Utah | Feb 26, 1951 | |
| 36 | Minnesota | Feb 27, 1951 | * |
| 37 | North Carolina | Feb 28, 1951 | |
| 38 | South Carolina | Mar 13, 1951 | |
| 39 | Maryland | Mar 14, 1951 | |
| 40 | Florida | Apr 16, 1951 | |
| 41 | Alabama | May 4, 1951 | |
| Ratified in 1439 days | |||
This amendment was specifically rejected by Oklahoma in Jun 1947; and by Massachusetts on Jun 9, 1949.
History: Since the presidency of George Washington, only one thing could be said to be totally consistent - that no President had the job for more than two full terms. Washington had been asked to run for a third term in 1796, but he made it quite clear that he had no intention of doing so; that an orderly transition of power was needed to set the Constitution in stone. And so it was for almost 150 years.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was first elected President in 1932, and re-elected in 1936. When it came time for the Democrats to nominate a candidate for the Presidency in 1940, two things had happened. First, the Republicans had made great gains in Congress in the 1938 elections. And Hitler happened. Europe was in the throes of a great war, with trouble in the Pacific, too. A change away from Roosevelt, who had led the nation through the Great Depression, did not seem wise. He was nominated for an unprecedented third term, and won. It was not a landslide victory, however, and it is debatable that FDR would have had a third term had it not been for the war. When 1944 rolled around, changing leaders in the middle of World War II, which the United States was now fully engaged in, also seemed unwise, and FDR ran for and was elected to, a fourth term.
His life was nearly over, however, and his Vice President, Harry Truman, became President upon FDR's death less than 100 days after his inauguration. Though FDR's leadership was seen by many as a key reason that the U.S. came out of WWII victorious, the Congress was determined, once the war ended, to ensure that Washington's self-imposed two-term limit become the law of the land. Specifically excepting Truman from its provisions, the 22nd Amendment passed Congress on March 21, 1947. After Truman won a second term in 1948, it was ratified on February 27, 1951 (1,439 days). Truman could have run for a third term, but bowed out early before campaigning began.
