The text of the 22nd Amendment to the United States Constitution limits any person to two elected terms as president and adds a separate rule for anyone who finishes more than half of a predecessor’s term. Congress proposed it on March 24, 1947, and it was ratified on February 27, 1951, turning the two-term tradition George Washington began into binding law after Franklin D. Roosevelt won four consecutive elections.1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment
Full Text
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.1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment
What the Two-Term Cap Actually Says
The first clause is the core rule: no person can be elected president more than twice. The verb matters. The amendment does not bar anyone from “serving” more than two terms; it bars them from being “elected” more than twice. That word choice shapes every question that follows, including how the rule treats successors and whether a former two-term president could ever appear on a ticket again in some other capacity.1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment
The Rule for Successors
Section 1 contains a second rule aimed at vice presidents and others who inherit the office mid-term. If a successor holds the presidency for more than two years of the original term, that partial service counts against the two-election cap, and the successor can win only one more election. Serve two years or less of the inherited term, and the clock never starts. The practical ceiling is roughly ten years in office: up to two years finishing someone else’s term, plus two full terms of your own.1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment
Two successions show the line in action. Lyndon B. Johnson took office on November 22, 1963, after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, and served about 14 months of Kennedy’s term before winning in 1964. Because 14 months falls under the two-year threshold, Johnson remained eligible to run again in 1968. He declined, but the text would have allowed it.1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Twenty-Second Amendment
Gerald Ford went the other way. He took office on August 9, 1974, after Richard Nixon’s resignation, and served about two and a half years of Nixon’s second term. That crossed the two-year line, so Ford could have won only a single election on his own. He lost to Jimmy Carter in 1976, and the restriction never came into play.
The Truman Exemption
The last sentence of Section 1 carves out anyone already serving as president when Congress proposed the amendment. That person was Harry S. Truman, who had succeeded Roosevelt in April 1945 and won election in 1948.2The Heritage Guide to the Constitution. The Presidential Term Limits Amendment The exemption was a political compromise: lawmakers agreed it would be unfair to change the rules on a sitting president. Truman could have run in 1952 and chose not to.3National Museum of American History. Sign, anti-Harry S. Truman, 1952
Does It Bar a Former President From the Vice Presidency?
The text does not answer this directly, and it is the most common question readers bring to the amendment. The 12th Amendment, ratified in 1804, says “no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall be eligible to that of Vice-President of the United States.”4Constitution Center. 12th Amendment Whether that bars a two-term former president from the vice presidency turns on what “ineligible” means when the 22nd Amendment speaks only of being “elected.” Some scholars read the two amendments together and say a two-term president is ineligible for either office. Others read the 22nd Amendment narrowly and argue a former president could serve as vice president and even return to the presidency through the line of succession, because that path involves no additional election.5Congress.gov. Twelfth Amendment No court has ruled on it, and no two-term president has tried.
When It Took Effect
Congress sent the amendment to the states on March 24, 1947, with the seven-year ratification window written into Section 2. Minnesota supplied the 36th ratification on February 27, 1951, clearing the three-fourths threshold and putting the amendment into the Constitution.6National Constitution Center. How the 22nd Amendment Came Into Existence