Tuesday, February 4, 2025

CREATORS: A Call to Vigilantly Protect and Enforce the 22nd Amendment

Matthew T. Mangino
CREATORS
February 3, 2025

The 22nd Amendment provides, "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice ..." The 22nd Amendment is under attack. President Donald Trump has openly discussed the possibility of seeking a third term. Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) recently introduced a House Joint Resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States to allow a president to be elected for up to but no more than three terms.

Ogles proudly announced in a press release that his proposal "[W]ould allow President Trump to serve three terms."

Why didn't the Founding Fathers put a limit on presidential terms? According to Bruce G. Peabody and Scott E. Gant in their 1999 Minnesota Law Review article "The Twice and Future President: Constitutional Interstices and the Twenty-Second Amendment," during the Constitutional Convention the question of how long the president should serve was discussed extensively. In debates on the question during the summer of 1787, Virginia Gov. Edmund Randolph called for an executive chosen by the national legislature and ineligible for more than one term of service.

Measures proposed by other Convention delegates left the question of eligibility open-ended and called for some form of presidential election, as opposed to selection by the legislature.

Obviously, the founders decided on election of the president, but put no limitations on terms. For more than 150 years it was not an issue, except for unsuccessful efforts by Ulysses S. Grant to seek the nomination of the GOP for a third term.

When Franklin D. Roosevelt died in Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12, 1945, he was serving his fourth term as president of the United States. Prior to Roosevelt, American presidents adhered to a tradition set by the nation's first president, George Washington, who served two terms and stepped aside. Every president before Roosevelt followed that tradition.

Roosevelt's decision to seek a third term was met with resistance. He won reelection as the world was being engulfed in a world war. Ironically, Roosevelt ran on the promise to keep America out of the war. That changed on Dec. 7, 1941.

Political leaders began to talk of presidential term limits when Roosevelt decided to seek a fourth term. Republican candidate Thomas Dewey said a potential 16-year term for Roosevelt was a threat to democracy. According to The Constitution Center, in a speech in Buffalo on Oct. 31, 1944, Dewey said, "four terms or sixteen years is the most dangerous threat to our freedom ever proposed. That is one reason why I believe that two terms must be established as the limit by constitutional amendment."

The United States Constitution was written "to endure for ages to come," Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in the early 1800s. According to the Associated Press, to ensure the Constitution would last, the framers made amending the document a difficult task. A proposed amendment must be passed by two-thirds of both houses of Congress, then ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the states.

In 1947, two years after Roosevelt's death, the House of Representatives proposed Joint Resolution 27, calling for a set limit of two terms, each containing four years, for all future presidents.

The proposed amendment was approved and sent out to the states for ratification on March 21, 1947. After almost four years of deliberation, the proposed amendment was ratified by three-fourths of the nation's state legislatures and adopted as the 22nd Amendment in 1951.

The prospect of amending or rescinding the 22nd Amendment should be of great concern to most Americans. In 1947, the concern was not only that FDR was elected to four terms but that dictators like Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin had installed themselves as leaders for life. Fortunately, the lifespan of Hitler and Mussolini was much shorter than expected.

In America, we don't need to count on longevity, or the lack there of, to stave off dictators — we have the 22nd Amendment.

Matthew T. Mangino is of counsel with Luxenberg, Garbett, Kelly & George P.C. His book "The Executioner's Toll, 2010" was released by McFarland Publishing. You can reach him at www.mattmangino.com and follow him on Bluesky @matthewmangino.bsky.social.

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