One sleep and less than 24 hours until Monday, January 20, 2025, and the second inauguration of President-elect Donald J. Trump.
There was a time when presidential term limits were treated in a similar way to what Congress continues to do with the national debt and Social Security: delaying the matter for the next Congress to deal with. Our first president, George Washingtonmade the decision to retire after eight years, and other presidents after him followed his example, serving only two terms. It took 147 years for the two-term precedent set by Washington to become constitutional codifiedand President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his unprecedented and never-to-be-repeated four terms in office were the catalyst.
The National Archives Amending America Project shows that presidential term limit proposals appeared regularly in Congress over the next 140 years, with the first possible amendment being introduced to Congress by Thomas Tucker in 1788. In his 1897 Report to the American Historical AssociationHerman V. Ames listed 125 versions of presidential term limits amendments proposed to Congress between 1788 and 1896. “These were largely spawned by fears that the president would use the patronage of his office to secure his re-election,” Ames said. “A large number of the amendments were not aimed at changing the presidential term of office as set out in the Constitution, but rather at limiting the number of times the same person can be elected president.”
As usual, the battle over presidential term limits has been fought along party lines. One party filed a bill creating an amendment when it feared that the opposing party’s president would miss the deadline, and vice versa. In a 1990 article, constitutional scholar Stephen W. Stathis wrote explained:
Stathis writes that by the time the 80th Congress convened in January 1947, at least 200 amendments to presidential term limits had been proposed in the House or Senate. But this Congress would be unique in its action to bring the amendment to a full vote and achieve the two-thirds majority needed for its passage, thereby sending it to the states for ratification.
The Republican Party had advocated for changing presidential term limits in its 1940 and 1944 convention platforms, when first Wendell Willkie and then Thomas Dewey ran against Franklin Roosevelt. (The Democrats had added a presidential term limits amendment to their 1912 platform to oppose another Roosevelt – Theodore – when the former president was seeking a third, non-consecutive term.)
Maybe it was the tailwinds of the last war, or the zeitgeist was moving in the right direction, but the 80th Congress somehow found common ground.
The House considered two versions of the amendment. One amendment constrained a president’s term to a single six-year term. the other constrained the president to two four-year terms. The House version of the two-term limit passed by a vote of 285-121 less than a month after the modern Congress met. Stathis notes that 37 Democrats who voted for the resolution were from Southern states.
The Senate and Sen. Robert Taft amended the House version to add language referring to a vice president who took office with 10 years of eligibility. Nine Senate Democrats from southern states joined a unanimous Senate Republican caucus in the Senate vote to approve the amendment’s language.
In 1947, Congress approved the language of the 22nd Amendment and it was sent to the states for ratification. This took another four years. The 22nd Amendment was ratified in 1951 and moved from presidential precedent to constitutional mandate. Our country is the better for it.
Roosevelt is also the instrument to set another presidential precedent: the establishment of powers for the office of vice president. The only constitutional role of the Vice President of the United States is that of President of the Senate, presiding over this advisory body and providing the deciding vote when necessary.
It’s ironic that former (thank God) President Joe Biden wanted to model his disastrous presidency after Roosevelt’s. In addition to both being Democrats, Biden repeated a number of the toxic elements that Roosevelt brought to his presidency, including the suspension of his vice president. Another terrible similarity is that both Biden and Roosevelt were in destitute health, but they had first ladies and an administration to cover them.
At 63, Roosevelt suffered He suffered from extremely high blood pressure and heart failure, and his body was weakened by his battle with polio. When Roosevelt died of a stroke in Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12, 1945, less than four months after his inauguration for his fourth term, Vice President Harry S. Truman was sworn in as President of the United States. However, thanks to Roosevelt’s cloudy handling of presidential affairs, Truman had no idea of the necessary mechanics of the office.
Despite his destitute health, Roosevelt never informed his vice president of critical matters. Truman met with Roosevelt eight times between his election as vice president and his nomination as president.
Roosevelt’s Vice President Truman had no idea that the United States had a nuclear weapons program. In the midst of World War II, Truman was not privy to critical intelligence information and was unaware of what was discussed in Roosevelt’s meetings with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill or anyone else Allied powers.
The fact that the vice president now plays a significant role is ironically due to the fact that Truman was excluded from the inner workings of Roosevelt’s fourth and final term, only to ascend to the presidency without prior experience.
This gives modern meaning to the term flying blind. It is a testament to the man from Independence, Missouri, that he deftly took on the monumental task of critical decision-making that brought us victory in World War II and laid the foundation for a time of peace and prosperity. It wasn’t until Truman’s second term that he even had a vice president. So Truman made the decision to invest greater power in the role, refusing to place the burden of ignorance on another man or the nation, especially at such a critical moment in the American experience.
Since Truman’s investment in 1949, the Vice President has been part of the President’s Cabinet and attends all Cabinet-level meetings. The Vice President is also a member of the National Security Councilto ensure that he not only receives the national security information but also stays abreast of all national security concerns.
Based on their statements and the information we have received, President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have plans to set modern precedents and invest in change to usher in America’s modern golden age.
That’s what we’re here for.
