An Overview of the 22nd Amendment
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What is the 22nd Amendment?
“Section 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.
Section 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.”
The 22nd Amendment Defined
Date Proposed
The 22nd Amendment was passed on March 21st, 1947
Date Passed
The 22nd Amendment was ratified on February 27th, 1951
President of the United States
Harry Truman was the President of the United States during the ratification of the 22nd Amendment
Stipulations of the 22nd Amendment
The 22nd Amendment institutes a limit on the amount of time in office that the President of the United States is allowed
The terms of individual presidency are not to exceed 2 consecutive terms
The 22nd Amendment does not address the legal, administrative permission granted to a President of the United States to run for the office of Vice Presidency; as of 2011, no former President has ever campaigned for Vice Presidency
The limit of presidential terms was expressed by the Founding Fathers of the Constitution; they had expressed that mandatory limits would eliminate the prospect of a Monarchy
Presidential terms are 4-years long
22nd Amendment Facts
Dwight Eisenhower was the first President-elect to serve subsequent to the passing of the 22nd Amendment; he expressed dissatisfaction with regard to the amendment, stating that a finite amount of time allowed to serve compromised a President’s perceived reputability during the final months of office
Franklin D. Roosevelt was the only President to exceed 2 terms of office; historians credit this to circumstances surrounding the United States’ participation in World War II
States Ratifying the 22nd Amendment
1. Alabama
2. Arizona
3. Arkansas
4. California
5. Colorado
6. Connecticut
7. Delaware
8. Florida
9. Georgia
10. Idaho
11. Illinois
12. Indiana
13. Iowa
14. Kansas
15. Kentucky
16. Louisiana
17. Maine
18. Maryland
19. Michigan
20. Minnesota
21. Missouri
22. Montana
23. Nebraska
24. Nevada
25. New Hampshire
26. New Jersey
27. New Mexico
28. New York
29. North Carolina
30. North Dakota
31. Ohio
32. Oregon
33. Pennsylvania
34. Rhode Island
35. South Carolina
36. South Dakota
37. Tennessee
38. Texas
39. Utah
40. Vermont
41. Virginia
42. Washington
43. West Virginia
44. Wisconsin
45. Wyoming
States Not Participatory in the Ratification of the 22nd Amendment
1. Massachusetts
2. Oklahoma
Statutes Associated with the 22nd Amendment
The term(s) of individual President-elects appointed to Presidency as a result of a vacancy will be considered a full term regardless of the fact that the amount of time served was fewer than 4 years.
