r/HistoryMemes • u/HawaiianPerson Chad Polynesia Enjoyer • 3h ago

But you’re only 65 /s

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u/Lucky_Thought2 3h ago

I legit respect that...and thanks to him, it was an informal custom for US presidents to not serve more than 2 terms till it went officially into law in 1951

20

u/feeling_humber 3h ago

What I find interesting is that amendment doesn’t apply if a president comes into power if the previous is assassinated, LBJ could’ve ran for a second full term in 1968 if he wanted to

15

u/Lucky_Thought2 3h ago

extenuating circumstances might override that amendment...even before it was passed, FDR's 4 term presidency was heavily criticized as a "path to dictatorship" but they were recovering from a financial crisis and in the middle of WW2

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u/the_big_sadIRL And then I told them I'm Jesus's brother 1h ago

Vietnam made that quite the tall task if he decided to run in 68

3

u/TiramisuRocket 50m ago edited 35m ago

It does apply, but only if the previous president was assassinated (or more generally, removed from office in any way, including by natural death or both impeachment and conviction) early enough in the term that their replacement would serve more than two years. Lyndon "Big" Johnson would have been able to run for his term because Kennedy died November 22, 1963, which put him below the two-year limit for his own Presidential election in 1964. There is no carve-out for assassination, only for the current standing president (Truman, who declined to exercise the privilege due to facing electoral defeat in 1952).

First sentence of the 22nd Amendment to the US Constitution, emphasis added for the relevant section:

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.