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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
On March 21, 1947, the House of Representatives concurred in the Senate amendments to House Joint Resolution 27, which proposed an amendment to the Constitution of the United States placing a limit on the number of terms a President may serve. The vote in the House on so important a question was amazingly small—81 ayes, 29 noes, a total of 110 votes. Objection to the vote on the ground of absence of a quorum was made and then withdrawn. The necessary vote of two-thirds was declared to have been taken, and the way was cleared for possible ratification by the legislatures of the states.
The pertinent part of the proposed amendment in its final form is as follows:
“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.”
Under this amendment a President might conceivably serve not to exceed ten years. The primary object of the latter part of the complicated proposal was to except President Truman from its application. In order to be valid, the proposal must be ratified within a period of seven years after its submission to the states.
1 Cong. Rec., Mar. 21, 1947, p. 2471Google Scholar.
2 Ibid., pp. 2467–2468.
3 Ibid., Feb. 6, pp. 886–915.
4 Ibid., p. 913.
5 Ibid., p. 914. Of course it was not the Eighteenth, but the Twenty-first, Amendment which was submitted to conventions.
6 Ibid., p. 915.
7 Ibid., Mar. 5, p. 1744.
8 On this subject, see Brown, Everett S., “Ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment,” in this Review, Vol. XXIX (1935), pp. 1006–17Google Scholar; also Brown, Everett S., Ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment to the Constitution (Ann Arbor, 1938)Google Scholar, and Orfield, L. B., The Amending of the Federal Constitution (Ann Arbor, 1942)Google Scholar.
9 Cong. Rec., Mar. 7, pp. 1865–1866.
10 No such procedure actually took place during the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment.
11 Cong. Rec., Mar. 7, p. 1866.
12 Ibid., p. 1867.
13 Ibid., p. 1869.
14 Ibid., p. 1871.
15 Ibid. The comparatively long report on thispart of the Senate debate appears justified for the reason that this phase of constitutional interpretation was here discussed fully for the first time.
16 Cong. Rec., Mar. 10, p. 1928.
17 Ibid., Mar. 12, p. 2036.
18 Ibid., pp. 2036–2037.
19 Ibid., pp. 2047–2049.
20 Ibid., pp. 2050–2052.
21 Ibid., pp. 2053–2054. Senator O'Daniel caused a laugh by claiming credit for getting the Democrats and Republicans together on one subject.
22 Ibid., pp. 2054–2055.
23 Unless special sessions of numerous legislatures are called, it will be impossible to complete ratification in less than two years. In forty of the states, the legislatures meet in odd-numbered years, and the 1947 sessions of most of them have expired. Their next regular sessions will not be held until 1949.
