Twenty-Second Amendment

Originalist note

Ratified in 1951, the Amendment codified "a well-defined custom which has risen in the past that no President should have more than two terms in that office" — an unwritten norm traceable to Washington's own choice to step down after two terms, rather than to any founding-era constitutional text. The 1787 Convention itself left presidential tenure unlimited by text, and this wiki's Convention-Journal and Madison's-Notes sources record no floor debate over a term-limit rule.

That silence is not, however, the whole founding-era record. New York's ratification instrument (26 July 1788) and Rhode Island's (29 May 1790) each recommended a constitutional amendment barring a third term outright — 163 and 161 years before ratification, respectively:

"That no person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States a third time." — New York ratification instrument, recommended amendment, 26 July 1788, quoted in Elliot's Debates vol. 1

Neither state's proposal was adopted by the First Congress in 1789, and no evidence in the wiki shows the proposal debated on the Convention floor itself — the concern surfaced at ratification, as a check on the still-untested new office, not during the Constitution's drafting. This corrects the wiki's prior overbroad claim (removed from this page) that no founding-era source in the wiki addressed presidential term limits at all: two ratifying conventions raised exactly this question, 1788-1790, and the First Congress declined to act on it, leaving the matter to the "well-defined custom" that stood until 1951.

gap

No source in the wiki shows the 1787 Convention itself debating a term-limit rule on the floor — only two ratifying conventions' recommended amendments, neither adopted at the time.

Modern doctrine (Annotated Constitution)

Overview and Ratification History (Amdt22.1)

A 1947 House Report explained the Amendment's purpose:

"By reason of the lack of a positive expression upon the subject of the tenure of the office of President, and by reason of a well-defined custom which has risen in the past that no President should have more than two terms in that office, much discussion has resulted upon this subject. Hence it is the purpose of this . . . [proposal] . . . to submit this question to the people so they, by and through the recognized processes, may express their views upon this question, and if they shall so elect, they may . . . thereby set at rest this problem." — H.R. Rep. No. 17, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. at 2 (1947)

This characterization followed soon after the people had elected Franklin D. Roosevelt to unprecedented third and fourth terms of office, in 1940 and 1944, respectively.

Unresolved Application Questions

The Twenty-Second Amendment has never been applied by a court. Commentary suggests several unresolved issues, particularly in relation to the Twelfth Amendment. By its terms, the Twenty-Second Amendment bars only the election of two-term Presidents; this would not prevent someone twice elected President from succeeding to the office after being elected or appointed Vice President. Broader language providing that no such person "shall be chosen or serve as President . . . or be eligible to hold the office" was rejected by the House Judiciary Committee in favor of the Amendment's narrower ban on election alone. Whether a two-term President could be elected or appointed Vice President turns on the Twelfth Amendment's own text, which provides that "no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President" — raising the unresolved question whether someone barred by the Twenty-Second Amendment from being "elected" President is thereby "constitutionally ineligible to the office." Neither Amendment addresses the eligibility of a former two-term President to serve as Speaker of the House or another officer in the line of succession under the Presidential Succession Act, 3 U.S.C. § 19.