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To: steveegg
Truman was a special case, as the the 22nd Amendment (limiting Presidents to 2 elected terms or 10 total potential years) would have DQed him in 1952 (after the last 3 years of FDR's 4th term and his own term) had it not explicitly excluded him.

I'm not so sure:

Amendment XXII
...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.
I read that to mean that the amendment didn't apply to Truman in any way.

I did in fact consider the the 22nd Amendment, which is why I left Eisenhower, Reagan and Clinton off the list.

60 posted on 03/12/2004 10:23:17 AM PST by usapatriot28
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To: usapatriot28
The 22nd Amendment was proposed (and passed) by Congress in 1947, and ratified by the states in 1951. Without that "shall not apply" language, Truman (the President when the 22nd was proposed) would have been barred from running again.

Further evidence of that being the line of thinking is the second part of that sentence; the allowance of one who would suddenly be violating the Constitution upon ratification to finish serving the term. Never mind that Truman was previously exempted, or that thanks to the timing and the presence of the 7-year time limit, it could not have been used by anyone else.

61 posted on 03/12/2004 11:46:44 AM PST by steveegg (You don't clean up 8 years of messes in 4, only to turn it over to Pigpen - W'04)
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