Constitution

The Twenty-second Amendment: Presidential Term Limits

The Twenty-second Amendment limits a President to two elected terms, or to one if he served more than two years of another's term.

4Conservative Editors · Published November 8, 2026

The text

Passed by Congress March 21, 1947. Ratified February 27, 1951.

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 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.

In plain English

Section 1. No one may be elected President more than twice. No person who has held the office, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which someone else was elected may be elected more than once.

The result: a President can serve at most ten years, if he takes over with less than two years left in his predecessor's term and then wins two elections of his own. If he serves more than two years of another's term, he may be elected only once.

The Amendment did not apply to Harry Truman, who was President when it was proposed, and it did not prevent Truman from running in 1952 (he chose not to).

Section 2. The Amendment would be inoperative unless ratified within seven years. It was ratified on February 27, 1951.

The Amendment limits election, not service. Questions about whether a two-term former President could serve as Vice President and then succeed to the presidency have been debated, but the Amendment's text refers to being "elected to the office of the President."

What the Founders said

For the Founders, a limit on terms was a matter of debate. At the Convention, some delegates proposed a single seven-year term and ineligibility for re-election; others favored indefinite eligibility. Hamilton argued in Federalist No. 72 that re-eligibility gave a President a motive for good behavior and allowed the country to keep an experienced leader.

George Washington declined a third term in 1796, and his decision set a tradition that Jefferson and later Presidents observed. The tradition held until Franklin Roosevelt won a third term in 1940 and a fourth in 1944.

The Republican Congress that took office in 1947, after the 1946 election, proposed the Amendment that March, and the states ratified it within four years.

How the courts have read it

There is little Supreme Court case law on the Twenty-second Amendment.

The principal questions the courts have not decided include whether a two-term President could be elected Vice President and then succeed, and how the Amendment applies to someone who served more than two years of another's term. Scholars disagree on both, relying on the Twelfth Amendment's ineligibility clause and on the text of the Twenty-second.

Why it matters now

Term limits for the presidency have strong support across the political spectrum, and the Twenty-second Amendment is among the few amendments Congress has passed that limit its own officers' successors. Conservatives have often cited the Amendment as a consistent application of the principle that no one should hold power too long. Washington's example, and the memory of Roosevelt's four terms, made the case.

A fair look at the question also considers Hamilton's objection, that a rule against re-election removes the voters' power to keep a leader they approve of. The Amendment is a decision to prefer a regular turnover of leaders over that flexibility, and it is a decision of the people made through Article V.

Because the Constitution can be changed only through amendment, speculation about a third term raises the question of whether the text would permit it. By its terms, it does not. Any change would require another amendment, which is the process the Constitution requires for every alteration of its structure.

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