PEOPLE POWER
The Third Term That Changed the American Presidency
Franklin Roosevelt’s 1940 decision to run again ended a 144-year custom—and eventually put presidential term limits in the Constitution.
In a country facing war abroad and an unfinished economic recovery at home, Franklin D. Roosevelt sought a third term. The political maneuver that won him the nomination also set off the backlash that produced the Twenty-Second Amendment.
The chants that filled Chicago Stadium in July 1940 did not begin as a spontaneous eruption from the convention floor. Thomas D. Garry, Chicago’s superintendent of sanitation, used the arena’s loudspeaker system to amplify calls of “We want Roosevelt!” The spectacle helped create the appearance of a party demanding that Franklin D. Roosevelt remain in office.
It was an extraordinary request because the presidency had operated for nearly a century and a half on an unwritten limit of two terms. Roosevelt had never announced a clean decision to seek another four years. He let rivals wait, declined to bless a successor, and allowed a carefully managed “draft” to build at the Democratic convention. By the time delegates voted, the old rule had given way to a new argument: with Europe at war and the United States still struggling to emerge from the Depression, continuity in the White House mattered more than custom.
Roosevelt won that argument at the ballot box. But his third and then fourth terms left Americans and their representatives with a different conclusion: a presidential limit should no longer depend on voluntary restraint.
An Unwritten Rule Built by Washington
The Constitution adopted in 1787 set no maximum number of presidential terms. The founders debated the character and powers of the executive, but Article II did not bar a president from seeking reelection indefinitely. The effective limit came from a choice made by George Washington.
In 1796, Washington declined to run again and published his Farewell Address. His retirement after two terms established a republican example with enormous political force. Thomas Jefferson later reinforced the practice, helping turn Washington’s decision into a durable expectation rather than a one-time act of personal modesty. [1][4]
The custom was powerful, but it was not law. A president could test it without violating the Constitution or a federal statute. Before Roosevelt, two former presidents made bids associated with a third term. Ulysses S. Grant sought the Republican nomination in 1880 for a nonconsecutive third term after serving two consecutive terms. Theodore Roosevelt, who had served nearly two terms after succeeding the assassinated William McKinley, ran again in 1912 on the Progressive ticket. Neither returned to the White House. [1]
That record made the boundary seem sturdier than it was. Americans had accepted a two-term presidency because successful politicians had chosen to honor the precedent—or had failed when they challenged it. Roosevelt’s situation would reveal the difference between an entrenched norm and a binding constitutional rule.
The Sphinx of Hyde Park and the Fall of France
By late 1939, Roosevelt’s plans were a subject of national speculation. Nazi Germany had invaded Poland in September, beginning the European war. At home, economic recovery remained incomplete. Roosevelt was also making preparations connected to a presidential library at Hyde Park, New York, a visible sign that retirement was at least under consideration.
Yet he would not say whether he intended to seek another term or identify a preferred Democratic successor. The uncertainty frustrated reporters and ambitious Democrats alike. In December 1939, the Gridiron Club displayed a papier-mâché Sphinx to mock the president’s studied silence.
The political landscape changed rapidly in the spring of 1940. German forces swept through Western Europe, and France fell in May and June. For Roosevelt’s supporters, the collapse of a major democracy made a change in American leadership look risky. For Roosevelt, it supplied the public case for treating a third term as an emergency measure rather than a simple act of personal ambition.
That case did not erase objections. Vice President John Nance Garner and Democratic National Committee chairman and Postmaster General James A. Farley both opposed a third term. Each had his own presidential aspirations, but their resistance also reflected a sincere belief that Roosevelt should respect the Washington precedent. The split showed that the president’s standing within his own party was not as effortless as the later convention display suggested.
A Draft Built by Party Machinery
The Democratic National Convention met in Chicago from July 15 to 18, 1940. Roosevelt remained in Washington rather than appearing before delegates to ask for their votes. His allies, including Chicago Mayor Edward J. Kelly, organized support on the convention floor, while the booming voice over the loudspeakers turned the arena into a demonstration for Roosevelt’s return.
The official story was that delegates were drafting an indispensable leader. Critics saw a nomination arranged in advance by a president who had kept potential rivals off balance. Both elements were present. Roosevelt’s backing inside the party was real, particularly after the fall of France, but the Chicago convention also displayed the hard mechanics of urban-machine politics.
Roosevelt won the nomination on the first ballot. Garner and Farley, longtime allies from the New Deal coalition, had openly broken with him. Roosevelt then pressed the convention to accept Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace as his running mate in place of Garner. That, too, challenged party practice: vice-presidential nominees were ordinarily shaped by convention bargaining, not dictated so directly from the White House. [3]
Eleanor Roosevelt addressed delegates amid the dispute, seeking to steady a party that had just overridden one of its deepest habits. The ticket emerged united enough to campaign, but the episode exposed a broader change in American politics. A president who had built a powerful national coalition could now exert unusual influence over his party’s nomination process.
Voters Chose Continuity
Republicans nominated Wendell Willkie, a business executive who attacked the prospect of a third term and warned against too much authority concentrated in one office. Much of the press agreed with him: roughly three-quarters of American newspapers endorsed Willkie. [5]
The electorate nonetheless returned Roosevelt to office on November 5, 1940. He carried 449 electoral votes to Willkie’s 82. [1] The result did not settle the constitutional argument, but it did establish that the two-term tradition could be overcome by popular vote in a period of anxiety.
War soon made the decision more consequential. The United States entered World War II after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. In 1944, with American forces fighting in Europe and the Pacific, Roosevelt ran again. He defeated New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey and became the only president elected to a fourth term. [3]
Roosevelt did not live to see the war’s end. He died at Warm Springs, Georgia, on April 12, 1945, 82 days into his fourth term. Vice President Harry S. Truman took the oath of office and inherited both the final months of the war and an office whose recent history had raised new concerns about long presidential tenure. [3]
From Custom to Constitution
Roosevelt’s elections did not produce an immediate term-limit amendment. In fact, Congress had received more than 200 proposed amendments on the subject before 1947. But the experience of four Roosevelt victories gave the issue a force it had lacked when earlier presidents merely tested the tradition. [2]
Republicans regained control of Congress in the 1946 elections. When the 80th Congress convened in January 1947, term limits became a priority. Republicans joined with conservative southern and western Democrats to approve House Joint Resolution 27 on March 21, sending a proposed amendment to the states. [2][6]
The Twenty-Second Amendment barred anyone from being elected president more than twice. It also addressed a vice president or other successor who had served more than two years of another president’s term, limiting that person to one subsequent election. The amendment did not apply to the sitting president when it was proposed—Harry Truman. He was explicitly exempted, though he ultimately did not seek another term in 1952. [5]
Minnesota became the 36th state to ratify the amendment on February 27, 1951, completing the three-fourths approval required to add it to the Constitution. [6]
The change did not declare Roosevelt’s third or fourth election illegitimate. He had run under the rules that existed, and voters had chosen him four times. Instead, the amendment reflected a postwar judgment that no future crisis, popular president, or party organization should be able to turn Washington’s voluntary example into an optional convention.
Questions About Roosevelt and the Two-Term Limit
Did any president try to run for a third term before FDR?
Yes. Ulysses S. Grant sought a nonconsecutive third term in 1880 but did not win the Republican nomination. Theodore Roosevelt ran in 1912 after previously serving nearly two terms, but lost the general election as the Progressive Party candidate. Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to win a third term. [1]
Why did George Washington step down after two terms?
Washington’s decision was voluntary, not required by the Constitution. His retirement in 1796 helped establish the expectation that a president would eventually yield power, rather than remain in office indefinitely. Jefferson’s later conduct and arguments strengthened that expectation. [1][4]
Did the Twenty-Second Amendment apply to Harry S. Truman?
No. The amendment specifically exempted the incumbent president when Congress proposed it. Truman therefore was not constitutionally barred by the new rule, although he did not pursue another full term. [5]
How did Congress react to FDR’s four terms?
After Republicans won Congress in 1946, the 80th Congress moved to turn the old two-term custom into a constitutional limit. It approved the proposed Twenty-Second Amendment in March 1947; the states completed ratification in 1951. [2][6]
TIMELINE
Key moments
Sources
- FDR's third-term election and the 22nd amendment — National Constitution Center
- How the 22nd Amendment came into existence — National Constitution Center
- Franklin D. Roosevelt's Presidency — Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum
- Interpretation: Twenty-Second Amendment — National Constitution Center
- Twenty-second Amendment (1951) — Annenberg Classroom
- H.J. Res. 27, Joint Resolution proposing an amendment to the Constitution relating to the terms of office of the President — U.S. Capitol Visitor Center / National Archives
RELATED STORIES