As America's first President, George Washington, set a precedent for a two-term limit of Presidents that followed him, up until Franklin D. Roosevelt's presidency.
Roosevelt ran for an unprecedented third and fourth term of office, in 1940 and 1944, respectively, but passed away 82 days after his fourth inauguration. This caused presidential term limits to become a huge campaign issue in the 1946 mid-term election.
Republicans who ran on the platform of term-limiting the presidency took control of both the House and Senate in 1947. The House of Representatives, staying true to their word, quickly took action and proposed a constitutional amendment (House Joint Resolution 27) setting a limit of two terms for future presidents.
This passed in the House on February 6, 1947, with a vote of 285-121. The Senate also drafted their own amendment proposal which differed from the House version. The Senate's version preferred to submit the amendment to state conventions for ratification rather than to state legislatures, creating a setback.
On February 28, 1947, Montana's state legislature exercised their authority and passed the application for term limits and sent the legislation to both of their U.S. Senators.
This exerted influence on the Senate to pass the resolution on March 12, 1947, with an amendment. The House agreed to the Senate amendment on March 21, and the final proposal was submitted to the states for ratification.
Ratification of the 22nd Amendment
Initially, ratification moved along fairly quickly as 18 state legislatures voted to ratify the proposal in 1947, then momentum slowed down quite a bit. Only three states ratified it in 1948, only two states ratified it in 1949, and only one in 1950.
It wasn't until Montana's state legislature took decisive action on January 25, 1951, and became the 25th state to vote in favor of ratification, that momentum picked up again. Their action and timing was pivotal once again as eleven more states quickly followed suit.
By February 27, 1951, the amendment met the ¾ threshold required for ratification. This amendment took 1439 days (nearly four years) to become ratified.
Montana's Drastic Change
This story makes a drastic change, because in 2007 the Montana legislature revealed disturbing constitutional ignorance by rescinding any and all applications to call a convention pursuant to Article V of the U.S. Constitution by referring to a "convention for proposing amendments" as a "constitutional convention."
The 2007 Montana legislature was obviously not educated on historical facts but rather duped by political propaganda advanced by elitists in the 1970s after the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision.
They purposely concocted a fear-mongering campaign to sabotage citizens from using Article V to overturn the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision or demanding a balanced budget requirement.
So having been duped, Montana's 2007 State Legislature set out to erase one of the proudest moments of the Montana legislature's history and prevent Montanans from exercising their constitutional rights in using Article V of the U.S. Constitution for the preservation of liberty.
How many would say they would want a President serving for unlimited terms?
The Republicans wouldn't want President Obama to serve unlimited terms, and the Democrats certainly wouldn't want President Trump serving more than two terms.
Our Framers purposely provided the means to make the Constitution amendable, and it is unconstitutional for anyone to deny citizens of such an important provision to be used as a check on the federal government.
We have seven Articles in the Constitution, not six. It's time to use Article V as intended and instructed.
