Off the Publisher’s Desk 7-23-25

Trump for a third term ???

Every since the Presidential election of last November there has been talk of Donald Trump running for a third term. I just brushed that off as a bunch of hopeful talk. But, last week as I was attending the St. Croix County Fair here in Glenwood City I came upon a stand that among other things had caps that had been embroider with “Trump 2028”.

Now the Twenty-Second Amendment clearly states, “No person shall be elected to the office of President more than twice.” It also limits a person who has held the office that someone else was elected to; they are limited to one term.

According to Wikipedia, “The Twenty-Second Amendment was a reaction to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s election to an unprecedented four terms as President, but presidential term limits had long been debated in American politics. 

“Congress approved the Twenty-Second Amendment on March 21, 1947, and submitted it to the state legislatures for ratification. That process was completed on February 27, 1951, when the requisite 36 of the 48 states had ratified the amendment (neither Alaska nor Hawaii had yet been admitted as a state), and its provisions came into force on that date.

Wisconsin approved the Twenty-Second amendment on April 16, 1947 and was the 14th state to do so. Minnesota was the 36th state to approve the amendment and that was on February 27, 1951. Several other states approved it later.

“Delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered the issue extensively (alongside broader questions, such as who would elect the president, and the president’s role). Many, including Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, supported lifetime tenure for presidents, while others favored fixed terms. Virginia’s George Mason denounced the life-tenure proposal as tantamount to elective monarchy. An early draft of the U. S. Constitution provided that the president was restricted to one seven-year term. Ultimately, the Frames approved four-year terms with no restriction on how many times a person could be elected president.

“Though dismissed by the Constitutional Convention, term limits for U. S. presidents were contemplated during the presidencies of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. As his second term entered its final year in 1796, Washington was exhausted from years of public service, and his health had begun to decline. He believed he had accomplished his major goals as president. For those reasons, he decided not to run for a third term, a decision he announced to the nation in his September 1796 Farewell Address.

“Eleven years later, as Thomas Jefferson neared the halfway point of his second term, he wrote:

‘If some termination to the services of the chief magistrate be not fixed by the Constitution, or supplied by practice, his office, nominally for years, will in fact, become for life; and history shows how easily that degenerated into an inheritance.’

So, Trump is doing a good job and has accomplished many of the things that he said he would do during the campaign, so lets support him and come 2029 he can leave public service with his head held high. If, somehow he does get a third term, he will be 85 and the oldest person to serve as president.

Thanks for reading!     ~Carlton