[Constitution of the United States of America:  Analysis, and Interpretation - 1992 Edition ]
[Amendments to the Constitution]
[Twenty-Second Amendment - Presidential Tenure]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office, www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1985]]


                         TWENTY-SECOND AMENDMENT
                               __________
 
 
                           PRESIDENTIAL TENURE


  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 
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.

                    LIMITATION OF PRESIDENTIAL TERMS

        ``By reason of the lack of a positive expression upon the 
subject of the tenure of the office of President, and by reason of a 
well-defined custom which has risen in the past that no President should 
have more than two terms in that office, much discussion has resulted 
upon this subject. Hence it is the purpose of this . . . [proposal] 
. . . to submit this question to the people so they, by and through the 
recognized processes, may express their views upon this question, and if 
they shall so elect, they may . . . thereby set at rest this 
problem.''\1\

        \1\H.R. Rep. No. 17, 80th Cong., 1st Sess. 2 (1947).