Amendment 22 and 23 are also confusing me.

Question

Its just the word set up is a bit confusing. For me to come to the Us, I would like to know the Constitution here and all of its amendments sucessfully. and Very throughly Please and thanks.

Answer 1

The 22nd amendment limits the President to only two elected terms. Once a President has been elected twice, he cannot run for re-election. That is why Bush will be leaving office at the end of his current term, because he was elected twice. Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton were all limited to only two terms because of the 22nd.

The wording of the 22nd also makes clear that President Harry Truman, who was in office at the time that the 22nd was proposed/ratified, would not have been limited by that amendment. The wording very strongly implied that Truman could have kept right on running for re-election as many times as he wanted to. He didn't do so.

Also the amendment says that if a Vice President became President because his predecessor dies or resigned and there were two years or less left remaining in that term, then that new President could still run for two elections. But if a Vice became Prez whenever there were more than two years left, then that new Prez can only run once. Hence, Jerry Ford, if he had won the election of 1976 instead of Carter, could not have run for re-election in 1980. Because when he had become President after Nixon's resignation -- August 1974 -- there were still more than two years left to go for that term in office.

The 23rd amendment gives the District of Columbia 3 votes in the electoral college. The district is not a state and does not have any Senators nor any members of the House who can vote on the final passage of legislation in the House. But because of the 23rd amendment, the District can vote for President.

Answer 2

When George Washington was our first president, he was the most popular man in the country, almost a legend in his own time.  Many people wanted him to just go on being president for life.  But Washington stepped down after two terms, saying that a president who rules for life is more like a dictator or a king.  He said two terms should be enough.  And after that, every president quit after two terms, until FDR in 1940.  At that time the Great Depression was just fading out and there was a big war brewing (WWII), so FDR ran for a third term and got elected, and then a fourth term.  (FDR was also VERY popular, though controversial).

So after FDR died many people thought it might be a good idea to actually have a constitutional term limit for the president.  That's what the 22nd Amendment was about.  It allows a president to be elected twice, and to serve up to 2 years as part of another president's term, for instance if the previous president dies or is impeached.

The 23rd Amendment is about Washington DC.  DC was not supposed to be a state.  When our govt. created it, they didn't expect many people would live there, it would be just the home of our federal government.  But by WWII, it had more people than many states!  So the 23rd Amendment allowed the people of Washington DC to vote for president.  They still were not a state and would not have representatives in Congress, but at least they'd have electoral votes to vote for president.