Trump’s Third-Term Musings Are Part of a Pattern

When Republicans took control of Congress in 1947, they were still angry that President Franklin D. Roosevelt had won a fourth term in 1944, and they set out to pass a constitutional amendment to limit future presidents to two terms. John Jennings, Republican of Tennessee, stood on the House floor and said a 22nd Amendment was necessary to prevent a dictator from taking over the country.

“Without such a limit on the number of terms a man may serve in the presidency, the time may come when a man of vaulting ambition becomes president,” Mr. Jennings said on Feb. 6, 1947. Such a man, backed by a “subservient Congress” and a compliant Supreme Court, could “sweep aside and overthrow the safeguards of the Constitution,” he said. Without such a law, a president could use the office’s great powers to tilt the political system in his favor and win repeated re-election. Eventually, that president could come to resemble a king, effectively unbound by the Constitution’s checks and balances.