The Twenty-second Amendment

The 22nd amendment was approved on February 27th, 1951, making permanent a tradition that has had a tremendous impact on the idea of governance in the United States of America. Although this is not the most well-known amendment, its significance in American history cannot be emphasised. This is because the 22nd Amendment requires...

No individual shall be elected to the office of President more than twice, and no person shall be elected to the office of President more than once if he or she has held the office of President, or functioned as President, for more than two years of a term to which another person was elected President.

The two-term limit for President of the United States was more of a matter of habit than legislation until the 22nd amendment. It all started when George Washington refused to seek re-election to a third term. The American people, on the other hand, made a bold statement about how their country would be conducted by enacting the 22nd amendment, which limited presidential power.

The notion of citizen rulers was one of the most unusual characteristics of how the United States of America constituted its government. This notion was conceived in the exact halls and taverns where the founding fathers convened to debate the fledgling country. The 22nd amendment killed the idea that America would ever be controlled by a monarch or a "president for life" by limiting the concept of a "career politician," especially at the presidential level.

This was definitely a response by America to the atrocities experienced in the homelands of the pilgrims and immigrants who make up this magnificent country. They responded angrily and unfavourably to monarchs' deification and the nearly boundless powers that many royal regimes tended to bestow on their rulers. This was one of the fundamental themes that drove so many people to depart Europe, Central Asia, and other areas of the world in search of a nation where the people were at the centre of the government's will, rather than the king's arbitrary ideals disconnected from the real needs of the people he served.

The way America set up its president was a clear attempt to "correct" the problems and excesses of European models by refocusing power in government on the electorate rather than the elected. The system of checks and balances is another feature of the American federal government that was designed to limit the capacity of people in authority to misuse their power. This arrangement ensures that none of the branches of government, the Congress, the Presidency, or the Supreme Court, may rule without challenge or control the others.By ensuring that everyone in authority had to account to the opposition party and be prepared to explain to the American people for what they did and even said, the odds of one branch of the government staging a "coup" against the other were entirely removed.

Accountability is a dull term, but it is the notion that has maintained the American government healthy and in service to its people for almost 200 years, rather than placing them in service.

Aside from these various very inventive techniques that the founding fathers provided to this nascent country to avoid the excesses of previous political systems, they also established a structure that ensured an orderly succession of power. The two-year election cycle eliminated two evils: the occurrence of a politician who served for life without accountability and a system in which the only way to lose your government post was to overturn it violently. As a result, despite being difficult and divisive, the American system has been and continues to be one of the most peaceful and orderly federal administration systems in the world, and indeed in history.