Which president served 4 terms

However, he did not win his party's nomination, so he was not even a choice in the final election. Theodore Roosevelt became the president when William McKinley was assassinated. He then served as president from Three years later, he tried to become the president again; however, he lost to Woodrow Wilson.

Discussions on limiting presidential terms began in when Roosevelt ran for his fourth term. In , President Harry S.

Truman proposed the Hoover Commission, which recommended that no president be allowed to serve more than two terms. One of the reasons for such a proposal was that many people felt that allowing more than two terms was a threat to democracy and would, in fact, lead to a sort of monarchy. So many lives were lost, and so much time and effort were spent fighting in the Revolutionary War to be free of the monarchy that the people certainly did not want to revert to those days.

As a result of that proposal, the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution was formed, limiting the number of terms that a president may serve to 2.

The amendment was passed by Congress on March 21, , and was ratified on February 27, While Congress members, periodically, have made efforts to repeal the 22nd Amendment, none of these efforts have made it out of committee. Therefore, FDR is and will remain our only 3 term president.

If you want to learn more about FDR, explore his famous phrase " speak softly and carry a big stick. The only president in American history to serve more than two four-year terms was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

He actually served three full terms as well as the first three months of a fourth term until his death on April 12, The current limits on how long a person can be president come from the 22nd Amendment, added to the U. Constitution in , which limits presidents to two successful presidential elections. Even so, in all that time, he was the only president who served more than two terms. A total of 13 presidents have served exactly two full terms.

Eight of them came before Roosevelt. Grover Cleveland served two terms separated by the four-year term of Benjamin Harrison. Feeling he was armed with a popular mandate, he sought legislation to enlarge the Supreme Court, which had been invalidating key New Deal measures.

Roosevelt lost the Supreme Court battle, but a revolution in constitutional law took place. Thereafter the Government could legally regulate the economy. He also sought through neutrality legislation to keep the United States out of the war in Europe, yet at the same time to strengthen nations threatened or attacked.

When France fell and England came under siege in , he began to send Great Britain all possible aid short of actual military involvement. Feeling that the future peace of the world would depend upon relations between the United States and Russia, he devoted much thought to the planning of a United Nations, in which, he hoped, international difficulties could be settled. The Presidential biographies on WhiteHouse. Copyright by the White House Historical Association. For more information about President Roosevelt, please visit Franklin D.

Roosevelt Library and Museum. I had made plans for myself, plans for a private life [but] my conscience will not let me turn my back on a call to service. President George Washington is still widely admired when he completes his second term as President, and many hope that he will run for a third term. Washington declines on the grounds that an orderly transition of authority is necessary to prevent rule by a king-like power. Washington also grew sensitive to the increased partisanship and resulting newspaper attacks on his administration during his second term, which made him anxious to retire to Mount Vernon.

After defeating John Adams in his run for reelection, Thomas Jefferson goes on to serve two terms as President. Jefferson then steps down voluntarily, solidifying the tradition of Presidents serving only two terms. As President Ulysses S. Grant, a Republican, nears the end of his second term in the White House, he contemplates running for a third term. The House of Representative, where the Democrats hold the majority, pass a resolution denouncing a third term as a violation of American political tradition.

Grant chooses not to be a formal candidate, but stands ready to be drafted in and His party chooses other candidates. After his reelection, he announces that he will honor the two-term tradition and not seek a third term in However, by , he has fallen out with his successor President William Taft and challenges him for the Republican Presidential nomination.