75 Years Ago, The U.S. Imposed Term Limits on Presidents

Trump might flirt with a third term, but the 22nd Amendment would be a huge hurdle.

By Frederic J. Frommer

Frustrated by Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt’s domination of national politics for a dozen years, Republicans quickly championed a constitutional amendment to limit future presidents to two terms.

The measure, which the GOP pushed for after winning control of Congress in 1946, made its way through both houses of Congress. By Feb. 27, 1951 — 75 years ago this month — backers had the required three-quarters of the states for ratification. The amendment was a reaction to FDR’s decision to break the two-term tradition, by running for and winning third and fourth terms in 1940 and 1944.

(White House photo)

Today, it’s a Republican president, Donald Trump, who riffs about running in 2028 for another term in office, despite the Constitution’s clear prohibition.

Back in the 1940s, many viewed the constitutional amendment drive as an anti-FDR campaign.

“They could never beat him when he was alive, so they beat him after he was dead,” said Elmer Davis, a radio broadcaster who served as director of the U.S. Office of War Information during World War II.

When the House took up the amendment in February 1947, Rep. Everett M. Dirksen (R-IL), said that it was needed “to repair a shattered political tradition.” But he admitted partisan feelings were a factor. “There may be an element of political frustration for some of us in what we do today.”

His fellow Illinoian, Democrat Adolph Sabath, said that he’d heard Republicans describe the amendment as “an anti-Roosevelt resolution.”

“My God can’t they let the man rest in peace?” he shouted.

The House passed the amendment 285-121, with all 238 Republicans present – along with 47 Democrats – voting for it to meet the two-thirds threshold. A month later, the Senate passed it 59-23. In that vote, 11 Democrats, “virtually all from the South,” voted yes, as the New York Times reported. At the time, the South was home base to conservative Democrats.

Four years later, Nevada became the 36^th state to ratify the amendment, providing the states needed for ratification. It was the first time the Constitution had been amended since the repeal of Prohibition in 1933.

“The new amendment is a real victory for those who feared perpetuation of a president would lead only to dictatorship, tyranny or worse,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Guy George Gabrielson. “This means that no president henceforth will decide all by himself that he is the indispensable man and therefore should run for a third, or even a fourth term. It means that the time-honored tradition set by George Washington will not be flouted again by personal ambition. There is no place for kings or dictators in our republic.”

But the House majority leader, Democrat John W. McCormack of Massachusetts, said the amendment was “fraught with danger to future generations of Americans” and would prevent the people from keeping “the best man under the circumstances” in the White House during an emergency.

The amendment limits each president to a total of 10 years in office, meaning that someone who ascended to the presidency from vice president could run for a second term only if the first term was less than two years. President Harry Truman, who succeeded FDR after his death in 1945, would have exceeded that 10-year-limit had he won reelection in 1952, but the amendment grandfathered him.

Still, Republicans said that the president would be violating the spirit of the amendment if he ran for reelection

“If he should have the audacity to seek another term in 1952, I am confident that the voters — certainly in their present mood — will see to it that the spirit of the amendment is observed,” Gabrielson said.

Truman had little to say about the amendment’s passage. “I have no comment; it does not affect me,” he said. He wound up not running in ’52, but that had more to do with low approval ratings.

The Washington Post noted that although Republicans pushed for the amendment, it was Democratic state legislatures that “ran up the score.” That wasn’t as strange as it sounded. This was your grandfather’s Democratic Party — especially in the South, where states including Arkansas and Georgia primarily supplied the final votes.

“The explanation most frequently given is not a sudden burgeoning of Republicanism in the South but a desire on the part of Southern Legislatures to embarrass President Truman in 1952,” the Post observed. “Although the terms of the amendment do not apply to the President holding office at the time it was proposed by Congress, some legislators apparently believe that it will throw cold water upon any third-term venture on Mr. Truman’s part.”

Thirty-five years later, the parties had essentially flipped on the issue. In November 1987, on the eve of his last year in office, President Ronald Reagan told British journalist David Frost that the amendment should be repealed because it prohibited the peoples’ right to “vote for someone as often as they want to do.” But he made it clear he was talking about future presidents, not himself.

GOP domination of that era’s presidential elections might have had something to do with his position. Following the amendment’s passage, Reagan was the third president to win re-election, along with Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard M. Nixon – all Republicans.

The two-term tradition predated the constitutional amendment by some 150 years, when George Washington decided in 1796 not to seek a third term. The nation’s third president, Thomas Jefferson, argued in his autobiography that anyone who sought a third term would be seen as too power-hungry.

“Should a President consent to be a candidate for a 3d. election, I trust he would be rejected on this demonstration of ambitious views,” he wrote.

Frederic J. Frommer, a writer and sports and politics historian, has written for the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Atlantic, History.com and other national publications. A former Associated Press reporter, Frommer is the author of several books, including “You Gotta Have Heart: Washington Baseball from Walter Johnson to the 2019 World Series Champion Nationals.” He is working on a book on 1970s baseball. Follow him on X and Bluesky.

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