Dear Steven,

Until the ratification of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1951, there was no legal limitation on the number of terms for which an individual could serve as President of the United States. Our first President, George Washington, was so universally respected that he could probably have been re-elected to a third term if he had sought it. However, Washington was of the opinion that more than eight years in office too closely resembled a monarchy and was too much for the good of the American Republic so he chose instead to retire at the end of his second term in 1797. All of his successors as President in the 1800's chose to follow Washington's example, and the voluntary two-term limitation eventually became an informal customary rule of American politics that lasted until Franklin Roosevelt's second administration was drawing to its close in 1940. The United States was only barely beginning to recover from the Great Depression that had begun in 1929, World War II had begun in Europe and in Asia, and there was great danger that the United States might any day be drawn into armed conflict with both Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. In this atmosphere of domestic and international crisis, FDR indulged his ambition to seek re-election for an unprecedented third term, and a majority of the American electorate agreed with Roosevelt's argument that it would be far too dangerous for the country to "change horses in mid-stream." When the election of 1944 came along, the United States was still deeply involved in fighting World War II, and FDR used the same arguments to win re-election to a fourth term but was able to serve only a few months until his death in 1945 brought his new Vice-President Harry Truman into the Oval Office.

In the aftermath of World War II, there arose a wide-spread belief among the American public that Roosevelt's one-man dominance of the American presidency for 13 consecutive years, while understandable in the context of the times, had not been a healthy thing for two-party competition and should not be allowed to happen again in the future. The expanded powers of the presidency seemed to give too many advantages to an incumbent over potential challengers. Therefore, lawmakers proposed and passed the 22nd Amendment, which provides for a legal two-term limit. The measure passed the House and the Senate by the necessary ? majority vote in March of 1947. It was subsequently ratified by the required 32 state legislatures in time to go into effect in 1951.

Thanks for your question,
Aubie and Dr. Johnson