Two-Term Limit: 22nd Amendment Ratified

Franklin Roosevelt won four presidential elections, died in office three months into his fourth term, and prompted the only constitutional amendment specifically designed to prevent one man's achievement from ever being repeated. The Twenty-second Amendment, ratified on February 27, 1951, limits presidents to two terms, codifying a tradition that every president from Washington to FDR had observed voluntarily. The amendment was a Republican project born of frustration. After twelve years of Roosevelt and the New Deal, the GOP-controlled 80th Congress proposed the two-term limit in March 1947 as part of a broader conservative backlash against executive power. The vote was largely partisan: Republicans voted overwhelmingly in favor, most Democrats opposed it, and Southern Democrats split. Ironically, the only president the amendment would have prevented from running was already dead. Ratification took nearly four years as state legislatures debated whether term limits strengthened or weakened democracy. Supporters argued that indefinite reelection created an elected monarchy, concentrating too much power in a single individual and making the president's party dependent on one personality. Opponents countered that the people should decide how long a president serves and that term limits would make second-term presidents lame ducks, weakening American governance during critical periods. The amendment explicitly exempted the sitting president, Harry Truman, who could have sought a third term but chose not to run in 1952. Dwight Eisenhower was the first president bound by its provisions, leaving office in 1961 despite high approval ratings. Since then, several two-term presidents — Reagan, Clinton, Obama — have expressed frustration with the limit, and periodic calls for repeal have gone nowhere. The Twenty-second Amendment remains a rare example of constitutional self-restraint, a deliberate choice to trade continuity for turnover in the belief that no individual, however popular, should hold power indefinitely.