Third Term

George Washington, the first president of the United States of America, ended his tenure after two terms in office (1789-1797). The next president to face the possibility of a third term was Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809).  In declining the opportunity, he stated on January 10, 1808 that, "If some termination to the services of the Chief magistrate, be not fixed by the constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally for years, will in fact become for life, and history shows how easily that degenerates into an inheritance."  What say you?  

Following the examples of Washington and Jefferson, Presidents James Madison (1809-1817), James Monroe (1817-1825), and Andrew Jackson (1829-1837) ended their presidencies after two terms.

Ulysses S. Grant served two terms as president from 1869 to 1877. Despite the precedent set by five previous presidents, he sought a third term.  However, his party, the Republican Party, turned against Grant and to his successor, President Rutherford B. Hayes.

Grover Cleveland served two terms as president from 1885 to 1889 and from 1893 to 1897.  He also sought a third term but his candidacy was rejected by his party, the Democratic Party.  

After President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901, Theodore Roosevelt (TR) served almost two complete terms as president until 1909.  He willingly retired from office at the end of his second term. However, in 1912, dissatisfied with his successor, President William Taft, a fellow-Republican, TR ran for a third term as a third-party candidate, but lost.

Woodrow Wilson, who defeated both Roosevelt and Taft in the 1912 election, served two terms as president from 1913 to 1921. He wanted to run again for a third term in 1920, but his party, the Democratic Party, turned him down.

When President Warren Harding died suddenly in 1923, Calvin Coolidge became president.  He was re-elected in 1924 and served until March of 1929.  Coolidge declined the opportunity to seek a third term.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) shattered the two term precedent when he was successfully elected four times: 1932, 1936, 1940, and 1944. He served in office from March of 1933 until his death in April of 1945, shortly after the beginning of his fourth term.  The fact that the world was at war in 1940 and America was in a war in 1944 helped FDR convince the American people he was still needed in the White House.  

In the 1944 presidential campaign, the Republican candidate, New York Governor, Thomas Dewey, announced his support for a Constitutional amendment that would limit future presidents to two terms.  He stated that, "four terms, or sixteen years, is the most dangerous threat to our freedom ever proposed."  Really?  

In March of 1947, the Republican controlled U.S. Congress, embittered by their failures to defeat FDR, passed a joint resolution calling for a two term limit Constitutional amendment. On February 27, 1951, Minnesota became the 36th state to ratify the 22nd Amendment, satisfying the required 75% threshold.  It took effect beginning with the first president elected after the then president, Harry Truman (1945-1953).  He considered running for a third term in 1952, but abandoned the idea after losing in the Democratic Party's New Hampshire primary.

Under the Brazilian Constitution, a president can have more than two terms, but not three consecutive terms.

I believe in democracy.  To me that includes the right of the people to choose their president.  The Founding Fathers who wrote the Constitution reasonably limited the requirement to be president to a "natural born citizen" of at least 35 years-of-age. However, the Founding Fathers did not include a term limit.  There are no term limits for Senators, Representatives, nor other federal office holders.  We do not approve when Iranian religious leaders disqualify candidates for their country's presidency nor when the People's Republic of China disqualifies candidates for office in Hong Kong.  Yet, by law some very qualified candidates are disqualified to be president of the USA.  Are we hypocrites?  

As President Theodore Roosevelt stated in his autobiography, "The American people have wisely established a custom against allowing any man to hold (the presidency) for more than two consecutive terms...but...it would be very unwise to have it definitely hardened into a Constitutional prohibition.  Most certainly the American people are fit to take care of themselves, and stand in no need of an irrevocable self-denying ordinance. They should not bind themselves never to take action which under some quite conceivable circumstance it might be to their interest to take.  In time of great peril (the American people) should be able to command the service of every one among its citizens in the precise position where the service rendered will be most valuable.  It would be a benighted policy in such event to disqualify absolutely from the highest office a man who...had actually shown the highest capacity to exercise its powers with the utmost effect of the public defense." I agree with TR.  What say you?
    

Five men, Dwight Eisenhower (1953-1961), Ronald Reagan (1981-1989), Bill Clinton (1993-2001), George W. Bush (2001-2009), and Barack Obama (2009-2017), were limited to two terms in office as a result of the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution.  It is my opinion that all of them, with the exception of Bush, would have been re-elected had they been willing and legally able to run for a third term.  What say you?

It is ironic that the first two presidents who were affected by the Republican-driven 22nd Amendment were Republicans.  It is also interesting to contemplate that, without the 22nd Amendment, nothing very important would have happened on November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas.