586
Changing the Constitution
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.
This Amendment arose out of resentment or uneasiness at President
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s defiance of the ‘‘no third-term’’ tradition established by George Washington. Might not some man more charismatic
even than Roosevelt succeed in getting elected for his whole life term—
as if he were a king?
The maximum period that a person can now serve as President is ten
years—two years by elevation to the office because of the death, disability, or resignation of the elected President and two elected terms of four
years each. Otherwise, a person can serve no more than eight years or
two terms as President as a result of the Twenty-Second Amendment.
Critics of the Amendment contend that an able and popular President,
in many circumstances, is more of a treasure than a danger, and ought
not to be absolutely forbidden election to a third term. In ad