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1 H.R. Rep. No. 17, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. at 2 (1947). 

PRESIDENTIAL TENURE 

TWENTY-SECOND 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 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.

LIMITATION OF PRESIDENTIAL TERMS 

‘‘By reason of the lack of a positive expression upon the subject 

of the tenure of the office of President, and by reason of a well-defined custom which has risen in the past that no President should 

have more than two terms in that office, much discussion has resulted upon this subject. Hence it is the purpose of this . . . [proposal] . . . to submit this question to the people so they, by and 

through the recognized processes, may express their views upon 

this question, and if they shall so elect, they may . . . thereby set 

at rest this problem.’’ 1 This characterization of the issue, of course, 

followed soon after the people had expressed their views by electing 

2104 AMENDMENT 22—PRESIDENTIAL TENURE 

2 H.J. Res. 27, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. (1947) (as introduced). As the House Judiciary Committee reported the measure, it would have made the covered category of 

former presidents ‘‘ineligible to hold the office of President.’’ H.R. Rep. No. 17, 80th 

Cong., 1st Sess. at 1 (1947). 3 3 U.S.C. § 19. For analysis of the Twenty-Second Amendment and its applicability to the various scenarios under which a person can succeed to the office, see 

Bruce G. Peabody and Scott E. Gant, The Twice and Future President: Constitutional Interstices and the Twenty-Second Amendment, 83 MINN. L. REV. 565 (1999). 

Franklin D. Roosevelt to unprecedented third and fourth terms of 

office, in 1940 and 1944, respectively. 

The Twenty-Second Amendment has yet to be tested or applied. Commentary suggests, however, that a number of issues 

could be raised as to the Amendment’s meaning and application, 

especially in relation to the Twelfth Amendment. By its terms, the 

Twenty-Second Amendment bars only the election of two-term 

Presidents, and this prohibition would not prevent someone who 

had twice been elected President from succeeding to the office after 

having been elected or appointed Vice-President. Broader language 

providing that no such person ‘‘shall be chosen or serve as President . . . or be eligible to hold the office’’ was rejected in favor of 

the Amendment’s ban merely on election. 2 Whether a two-term 

President could be elected or appointed Vice President depends 

upon the meaning of the Twelfth Amendment, which provides that 

‘‘no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall 

be eligible to that of Vice-President.’’ Is someone prohibited by the 

Twenty-Second Amendment from being ‘‘elected’’ to the office of 

President thereby ‘‘constitutionally ineligible to the office’’? Note 

also that neither Amendment addresses the eligibility of a former 

two-term President to serve as Speaker of the House or as one of 

the other officers who could serve as President through operation 

of the Succession Act. 3