Video: 'The 22nd Amendment Explained: The Constitution for Dummies Series'

(Tuesday, February 27, 1951) — The Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, which limits to two the number of times a person is eligible for election to the office of President of the United States, was ratified today when the Minnesota Legislature approved it, completing the requisite ratification by 36 of the then 48 states.

Until the amendment’s ratification, the president had not been subject to term limits, but George Washington had established a two-term tradition that many other presidents followed.

In the 1940 presidential election and the 1944 presidential election, Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first president to win third and fourth terms, giving rise to concerns about a president serving an unlimited number of terms.

Congress approved the Twenty-second Amendment on March 21, 1947, and submitted it to the state legislatures for ratification.

The amendment prohibits anyone who has been elected president twice from being elected again. Under the amendment, someone who fills an unexpired presidential term lasting more than two years is also prohibited from being elected president more than once.

The 22nd Amendment’s two-term limit did not apply (due to the grandfather clause in Section 1) to Harry S. Truman, because he was the incumbent president at the time Congress proposed it. Truman, who had served nearly all of Franklin Roosevelt’s unexpired fourth term and who was elected to a full term in 1948, was thus eligible to seek a third term in 1952.