U.S. Constitution · Amendment XXII, Section 1 · ratified 1951-02-27
Presidential Term Limits, section 1
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The text
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.
National Archives transcription (public domain; original spelling and capitalization). archives.gov
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In the founders’ words
- “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.” Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson to the Legislature of Vermont, December 10, 1807 (1807-12-10)
- “Believing that a representative government, responsible at short periods of election, is that which produces that greatest sum of happiness to mankind, I feel it a duty to do no act which shall essentially impair that principle; and I should unwillingly be the person who, disregarding the sound precedent set by an illustrious predecessor, should furnish the first example of prolongation beyond the second term of office.” Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson to the Legislature of Vermont, December 10, 1807 (1807-12-10)
- “Nothing appears more plausible at first sight, nor more ill-founded upon close inspection, than a scheme which in relation to the present point has had some respectable advocates, I mean that of continuing the chief magistrate in office for a certain time, and then excluding him from it, either for a limited period or forever after. This exclusion, whether temporary or perpetual, would have nearly the same effects, and these effects would be for the most part rather pernicious than salutary.” Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 72 (1788-03-21)
- “One ill effect of the exclusion would be a diminution of the inducements to good behavior. There are few men who would not feel much less zeal in the discharge of a duty when they were conscious that the advantages of the station with which it was connected must be relinquished at a determinate period, than when they were permitted to entertain a hope of OBTAINING, by MERITING, a continuance of them.” Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist No. 72 (1788-03-21)
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Values for America Constitution Explorer, https://www.valuesforamerica.com/constitution (text: National Archives transcription, public domain), Amendment XXII, Section 1, https://www.valuesforamerica.com/constitution/amendment-22/section-1
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