22nd Amendment Research Paper
The 22nd Amendment: Unchallenged Following the death Franklin Delano Roosevelt, which occurred during his fourth elected term as president, the United States Congress passed the twenty-second amendment, which put into writing a previously unwritten tradition of the presidency. This tradition, set in place by George Washington in 1797 and further cemented by Thomas Jefferson, had remained in place for 144 years before it was finally broken. While a few previous presidents had tried to run for a third term, it was only FDR who succeeded. Grant tried to run but lost his party’s nomination to Garfield, Grover Cleveland attempted a third term but could not garner enough support, Theodore Roosevelt lost to Woodrow Wilson when Theodore attempted
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Guffey, a former Pennsylvanian senator, C.F. Richards, a lawyer from Texas, and Edmond C. Gorrell, an editor of a newspaper in Indiana. Formed towards the beginning of 1949, The National Committee against Limiting the Presidency, despite its ambitions of stopping the twenty-second amendment from being passed, was quite small and inactive. The group was practically doomed from the start, as they suffered from two major encumbrances to their ability to achieve their goal. The first was an inability to gather more members, as well as a lack of action on the part of most of the members of the group. Daniel Francis Clancy and Harold Ickes reportedly contributed the majority of the efforts to present opposition to the amendment. The second reason for the group’s failure was their limited budget, which was brought on by its very limited membership. This lack in money meant that nearly all of their action against the amendment consisted of writing letters to senators asking them to try to block the amendment. (Lemelin, 1999) This group, however, was not the first to speak in support of presidents holding more than two, four-year terms in office. One of the earliest such people was Alexander Hamilton with his plan for how the president should be elected, which was discussed in class. The Hamilton plan of a “life monarch”, who was free from public control, was not exactly what those against the twenty-second amendment had in mind, but it is probably similar to what the supporters of the amendment most likely
Guffey, a former Pennsylvanian senator, C.F. Richards, a lawyer from Texas, and Edmond C. Gorrell, an editor of a newspaper in Indiana. Formed towards the beginning of 1949, The National Committee against Limiting the Presidency, despite its ambitions of stopping the twenty-second amendment from being passed, was quite small and inactive. The group was practically doomed from the start, as they suffered from two major encumbrances to their ability to achieve their goal. The first was an inability to gather more members, as well as a lack of action on the part of most of the members of the group. Daniel Francis Clancy and Harold Ickes reportedly contributed the majority of the efforts to present opposition to the amendment. The second reason for the group’s failure was their limited budget, which was brought on by its very limited membership. This lack in money meant that nearly all of their action against the amendment consisted of writing letters to senators asking them to try to block the amendment. (Lemelin, 1999) This group, however, was not the first to speak in support of presidents holding more than two, four-year terms in office. One of the earliest such people was Alexander Hamilton with his plan for how the president should be elected, which was discussed in class. The Hamilton plan of a “life monarch”, who was free from public control, was not exactly what those against the twenty-second amendment had in mind, but it is probably similar to what the supporters of the amendment most likely