Constitution Class Handout
Temecula, Faith Armory
41669 Winchester Road
Temecula, CA 92590
Thursdays at 6:30 pm
Instructor: Douglas V. Gibbs
Lesson 21
Final Amendments
Amendment
22: Presidential Term Limit
The 22nd Amendment was
passed in 1951. It was designed to
ensure no president could seek a third term. Though the Constitution did not
limit the number of terms a president could serve prior to this amendment, many
consider the fact that George Washington chose not to seek a third term as
evidence the Founding Fathers recognized two terms should be the expected
standard.
George Washington’s
popularity would have easily enabled him to be President for the rest of his
life, and many even tried to encourage him to be king. However, Washington saw himself as no
different than everyone else, and recognized the presidency as a privilege to
serve. He felt that more than two terms
opened the opportunity for abuse of power by an Executive, which would hinge on
the idea of a monarchy.
Following George Washington,
James Madison and James Monroe also adhered to the two-term principle. No Presidents afterward sought a third term,
with the exceptions of Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin
Delano Roosevelt. No President achieved
a third term until FDR.
Franklin D. Roosevelt in
1940 became the only President to be elected to a third term. World War II has often been cited as the
reason. The public was not fond of the
idea of a change in Commander in Chief during such a crucial event in history. In 1944, while World War II continued to
rage, Roosevelt won a fourth term. He died
before he could complete it.
The 22nd Amendment was
proposed and ratified during the Truman presidency.
The failure of the Founding
Fathers to establish a term limit on the President in the early articles of the
United States Constitution aligns with a prevailing opinion the Framers held
that term limits were the responsibility of the voter. Their belief hinged on a reliance on the
people and the Electoral College, and that electorally a third term would be
prevented, unless a third term was absolutely necessary.
Under the 22nd Amendment,
the only President who would have been eligible to serve more than two terms
would be Lyndon B. Johnson. LBJ was the
Vice President of the United States at the time of the assassination of
President John F. Kennedy, and after serving the remainder of JFK’s term,
Johnson had only been President for fourteen months. The 22nd Amendment provides that “No
person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no
person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more
than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall
be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
Questions
for Discussion:
1. Why do you
think the Founding Fathers believed two terms were adequate for the President?
2. What is the
cited reason for Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s continued re-election as
President?
3. How could an
unlimited allowance of terms for President be dangerous?
Resources:
Andrew M.
Allison, Jay A. Perry, and W. Cleon Skousen, The Real
George Washington; New York: National Center for Constitutional Studies
(2010)
Catherine
Drinker Bowen, Miracle at Philadelphia:
The Story of the Constitutional Convention, May to September 1787; Boston:
Atlantic
Monthly Press (1966)
Donald
Porter Geddes (ed.), Franklin Delano
Roosevelt - A Memorial;
New York: Pitman Publishing Corporation (1945)
James
Srodes, On Dupont Circle: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and
the Progressives Who Shaped
Our World; Berkeley: CounterPoint Press (2012)
James
Thomas Flexner, Washington: The
Indispensible Man; Boston:
Back Bay Books (1969)
John
Morton Blum, The Progressive Presidents:
Theodore Roosevelt,
Woodrow
Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon B. Johnson; New York: W.W. Norton & Co.
(1982)
Willard
Sterne Randall, George Washington: A Life; New York: Henry
Hold & Co. (1997)
Amendment
23: Washington, D.C., Receives Electoral Votes
The rallying cry during the
American Revolution, as we have been taught, was “No taxation without
representation.” Yet, despite that
famous call for revolution, after the United States became a nation, there were
those who were taxed without representation in the United States
Government. The most famous case was Washington,
D.C. The movement for representation for
Washington, D.C., led to the proposal, and ratification, of the 23rd Amendment.
Washington, D.C., is a ten
mile by ten mile section of land donated by Maryland and Virginia to serve as
the seat of government. The land
was easy for those two States to let go of because it was undesirable. While it is popular to say that Washington,
D.C., sits on swampland, it is actually a tidal plain, land that was a mix of
thickly wooded slopes, bluffs and hills, crop land, and several major waterways. The location was chosen by George Washington
because of its central location between the northern and southern States as a
compromise between Alexander Hamilton and northern States who wanted the new
federal government to assume Revolutionary War debts, and Thomas Jefferson and
southern States who wanted the capital placed in a location friendly to
slave-holding agricultural interests.
The District was not
supposed to be a city in the sense that we see it today. The District of Columbia was not supposed to
have a population, for the creation of the district was for the sole purpose of
being the seat of the United States Government.
The Congress was given full power over the functioning of the city, and
the inhabitants were supposed to only be the temporary visitors of government
officials, or employees. The Founding
Fathers envisioned Washington, D.C., to be the seat of the federal government,
and a vibrant commercial center.
As time passed, Washington,
D.C., attracted residents, eager to partake in the opportunities offered in the
way of government jobs. The incoming
population largely consisted of Free Blacks prior to the beginning of the
American Civil War, and after the abolition of slavery in the District in
1850. After the War Between the States, the growth of Washington, D.C.’s population
exploded.
John Adams, the second
President of the United States, did not like Washington, D.C. He viewed it as hardly being a city at all,
and nothing more than a clump of dirty buildings, arranged around “unpaved,
muddy cesspools of winter, waiting for summer to transform them into
mosquito-infested swamps.”
As the population of Washington,
D.C., grew during the twentieth century, it became glaringly apparent to the
residents that their taxation did not accompany representation. At one point, “Taxation without
representation” became such a rallying cry that Washington, D.C., license
plates even held the phrase.
After the cries for
representation reached a crescendo, the Twenty-Third Amendment was proposed and
ratified, allowing the citizens in Washington, D.C., to vote for Electors for
President and Vice President. The
amendment was ratified in 1961.
Since Washington, D.C., is
not a State, the District is still unable to send voting Representatives or
Senators to Congress. However, Washington,
D.C., does have delegates in Congress that act as observers.
The amendment restricts the
district to the number of Electors of the least populous state, irrespective of
its own population. That number is currently
three.
Terms:
Seat of
Government - The location of the government for a political
entity. The seat of government is
usually located in the capital.
Commercial
Center - A central location of commercial activity; an environment for
commerce, or business activity.
War
Between the States - The Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1865 after
Seven Southern slave States seceded from the United States, forming the
Confederate States of America. The
"Confederacy" grew to include eleven States. The war was fought between the States that
did not declare secession, known as the "Union" or the
"North", and the Confederate States.
The war found its origin in the concept of State’s Rights, but became largely
regarding the issue of slavery after President Abraham Lincoln delivered the
Emancipation Proclamation. Over 600,000
Union and Confederate soldiers died, and much of the South's infrastructure was
destroyed. After the War, Amendments 13,
14, and 15 were proposed and ratified to abolish slavery in the United States,
and to begin the process of protecting the civil rights of the freed slaves.
Questions for Discussion:
1. Why was the
location of Washington DC chosen to be at a central position between the
northern and southern States?
2. Why was
Washington DC only supposed to be the seat of government?
3. What was the
encouragement for people to take up residency in Washington DC?
4. How did the
Twenty-Third Amendment satisfy the demand by the districts residents that they
be afforded representation?
5. How is
Washington DC’s representation limited?
Resources:
Joseph
Andrews, A Guide for Learning and
Teaching The Declaration of
Independence and The U.S. Constitution - Learning from the Original
Texts Using Classical Learning Methods of the Founders; San
Marcos: The Center for Teaching the Constitution (2010)
Larry
Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s
History of the United
States; New
York: Sentinel (2004)
Smithsonian, Washington, D.C., History and Heritage,
(2007)
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/destination-hunter/north-america/united-states/east/washington-dc/washingtondc-history-heritage.html
Amendment
24: Poll Taxes and Open Primaries
The 24th Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution ratified in 1964 made it unconstitutional for a State to use
payment of taxes as a requirement to vote in national elections. Few blacks could vote in States using poll
taxes as a requirement to vote because they had little money. The poll tax to vote in these states
was $1.50. After the ratification of the
24th Amendment a number of districts continued the practice of requiring a poll
tax in order to vote. A woman named
Evelyn T. Butts decided to take the poll tax issue to court. In October 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court
agreed to hear Evelyn T. Butts' appeal.
In 1966 the Supreme Court of the United States declared poll taxes
unconstitutional in accordance with the 24th Amendment.
A poll tax is a uniformed
tax levied on every adult in the community, called a capitation tax by
the Founding Fathers. Poll taxes have
their roots in ancient tax systems and have been criticized as an unfair burden
on the poor. Historically, in the U.S.,
poll taxes were enacted in the South as a prerequisite for voting,
disfranchising many African-Americans and poor whites.
One argument regarding the
article claims the spirit of the 24th Amendment also disallows closed
primaries by leaving out of the process independent voters. As a result, a number of States have been
passing laws enabling their States to make their election primaries open to all
voters. In an open primary you
can vote for anyone you want regardless of party affiliation during the primary
election. Some proponents of open
primaries contend closed primaries are unconstitutional - a violation of the
24th Amendment.
General discontent with the two-party
system has emerged in American society.
A party system, however, is a natural result of human nature. Every issue is divided by those who support
the issue, and those that oppose it. As
human beings, we tend to gravitate toward those who think like ourselves (birds
of a feather flock together), and parties ultimately form out of that natural
tendency to organize. Once the groups
form, they become organizations, appoint leadership positions, and a political
party is born. Political parties are the
natural result, fueled by our own human nature, of this kind of political
organization.
In a party system such as
ours, to allow voters to cross party-lines in the primaries can be dangerous
because it opens up the potential for unethical voting techniques that are
designed to injure the other party. Open
primaries allow members of opposing parties to vote in their opponent's primary
in the hopes of affecting the outcome, and putting the weaker candidate on the
ballot so that their own party has a better chance to win. If both parties of a two party system is
doing such, the result will always be the two weakest candidates facing off
against each other. Open primaries
nullify the whole point of the primary elections, and often result in the best
candidates not being elected.
Not all States have
primaries, and the rules for choosing candidates for a particular party varies
from State to State - as it should. Some
States have caucuses, which are meetings of the members of a legislative
body who are members of a particular political party, to select
candidates. The choosing of the
delegates varies from State to State.
States are given the
authority to make their own election rules, and maintain the elections in their
State, according to Article I, Section 4 of the United States Constitution, and
reinforced by Article II. This is why
the Florida-Chad controversy in 2000 should have never resulted in the federal
courts, or even the State courts, getting involved. According to the Constitution, the decision
on what to do regarding the controversy in Florida in 2000 should have remained
with the State Legislature.
Some supporters of open
primaries contend that closed primaries are in violation of the 24th Amendment
because limiting who can vote in a primary by party membership is a poll tax as
per implied law.
By strict definition, a poll tax is a tax,
which would be a monetary amount expected as a prerequisite for voting. Closed primaries do not impose a monetary tax,
and therefore are not in violation of the 24th Amendment, based on the language
of the amendment. One may suggest the
24th Amendment implies that no action can be taken to close any election
to any person - but primaries are simply party oriented. People who couldn't vote in the primary would
have been able to by joining a political party, and regardless of the ability
to vote in the primaries, will be able to vote in the general election, and
therefore are not being declined the opportunity to participate in the
electoral process.
Terms:
Capitation - Head
tax; a direct tax on each person.
Caucuses - A
meeting of the members of a legislative body who are members of a particular
political party, to select candidates or decide policy.
Closed
Primary - A primary election in which only party members may
select candidates for a general election.
Implied
Law - Legal concept serving as a legal substitute for authorities
expressly granted by the United States Constitution; an agreement created by
actions of the parties involved, but it is not written or spoken, because they
are assumed to be logical extensions or implications of the other powers
delegated in the Constitution.
Open
Primary - A primary election in which voters, regardless of
party may select candidates from any party for a general election.
Poll Tax - A tax
levied on people rather than on property, often as a requirement for voting.
Primary
Election - An election in which party members or voters select
candidates for a general election.
Tax - A
compulsory monetary contribution to the revenue of an organized political
community, levied by the government of that political entity.
Two-Party
System - A form of political system where two major political parties dominate
voting in nearly all elections, at every level; a political system consisting chiefly
of two major parties, more or less equal in strength.
Questions
for Discussion:
1. How did poll
taxes disallow some people from being able to vote?
2. What is the
difference between open primaries, and closed primaries?
3. Why is the
existence of a two-party system inevitable in a political system like ours?
4. Who
prescribes the times and manner of elections?
5. How was the
“hanging chad” controversy mishandled?
6. What are the
advantages and disadvantages of open primaries?
Closed primaries?
Resources:
Congressional
and Presidential Primaries: Open, Closed, Semi-Closed,
and "Top Two",
Fair Vote: http://www.fairvote.org/congressional-and-presidential-primaries-open-closed-semi-closed-and-top-two#.T01VzPGPWHM
Joseph
Andrews, A Guide for Learning and
Teaching The Declaration of
Independence and The U.S. Constitution - Learning from the Original
Texts Using Classical Learning Methods of the Founders; San
Marcos: The Center for Teaching the Constitution (2010)
Tom
Spencer, American-style primaries would breathe life into
European elections (2004): http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/imported/american-style-primaries-would-breathe-life-into-european-elections/49725.aspx
Ware,
Alan. The American Direct Primary: Party Institutionalization and
Transformation in the North
(2002), the invention of primaries around 1900: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=105149213
Amendment
25: Presidential Disability and Succession
The 25th Amendment, Section
1, reads, “In case of the removal of the President from office or of his
death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.”
Section 1 of the 25th
Amendment is clear, concise, and to the point.
After nearly two centuries of questions regarding if the Vice President
actually became President in the case of the removal, death or resignation of
the President, or was to merely act as President if such an instance would
arise, the 25th Amendment sought to clarify without question the confusion that
haunted Article II, Section 1, Clause 6, and the 12th Amendment.
When President William Henry
Harrison became the first U.S. President to die in office in 1841,
Representative John Williams had previously suggested that the Vice President
should become Acting President upon the death of the President. Vice President John Tyler concurred,
asserting that he would need to succeed to the office of President, as opposed
to only obtaining its powers and duties.
Though Tyler took the oath of President (precedent for full succession
was established, becoming known as the "Tyler Precedent"), nothing
was done to amend the Constitution regarding the procedure.
When President Wilson
suffered a stroke in 1919, no one officially assumed the Presidential powers
and duties, and the office of President essentially remained unmanned during the
remainder of Wilson’s second term.
It was clear that a set of
guidelines needed to be established.
In 1963, a proposal enabling
Congress to enact legislation establishing a line of succession by Senator
Kenneth Keating of New York based upon a recommendation by the American Bar
Association in 1960 surfaced, but it never gained enough support.
On January 6, 1965, Senator
Birch Bayh proposed in the Senate, and Representative Emanuel Celler proposed
in the House of Representatives, what would become the 25th Amendment. Their proposal provided a way to not only
fill a vacancy in the Office of the President by the Vice President, but also
how to fill the Office of the Vice President before the next presidential
election.
The line of succession the
25th Amendment establishes is as follows:
If the President is removed
from office, dies, or resigns, the Vice President immediately becomes
President. Prior to the 25th Amendment
there was no provision for Vice Presidential vacancies. Under Section Two of the 25th Amendment the
President nominates a successor who becomes Vice President if confirmed by a
majority vote of both Houses of Congress, which occurred when President Richard
Nixon appointed Gerald Ford to be his Vice President, after Spiro Agnew
resigned as Vice President of the United States.
In Section 3 of the
amendment, if the President provides a written declaration to the President Pro
Tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives that “he
is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, and until he
transmits to them a written declaration to the contrary, such powers and duties
shall be discharged by the Vice President as Acting President.”
Section 4, which has never
been invoked, enables the Vice President, together with a majority of either
the leading officers of the Executive Department, or of "such other
body as Congress may by law provide", to declare the President disabled
by submitting a written declaration to the President Pro Tempore and the
Speaker of the House of Representatives.
If the President is unable to discharge his duties as indicated, the
Vice President would become Acting President.
If the President's incapacitation prevents him from
discharging the duties of his office and he himself does not provide a written
declaration, the President may resume exercising the Presidential duties by
sending a written declaration to the President Pro Tempore and the Speaker of
the House. If the Vice President and the
officers of the Cabinet believe the President's condition is preventing him
from discharging the duties of President, they may within four days of the
President's declaration submit another declaration that the President is
incapacitated. If not in session, the
Congress must, in this instance, assemble within 48 hours. Within 21 days of assembling or of receiving
the second declaration by the Vice President and the Cabinet, a two-thirds vote
of each House of Congress is required to affirm the President as unfit. If such actions are satisfied the Vice
President would continue to be Acting President. However, if the Congress votes in favor of
the President, or if the Congress makes no decision within the 21 days
allotted, then the President would resume discharging all of the powers and
duties of his office.
Questions
for Discussion:
1. Why do you
think there was no line of succession clearly defined prior to the 25th
Amendment?
2. Why do you
believe nobody took on presidential powers after President Wilson’s stroke in
1919?
3. How does a
President’s incapacitation affect the overall functioning of government?
4. Would a
President’s incapacitation influence government functioning differently in a
time of war?
Resources:
Joseph
Andrews, A Guide for Learning and
Teaching The Declaration of
Independence and The U.S. Constitution - Learning from
the Original Texts Using Classical Learning Methods of the Founders; San
Marcos: The Center for Teaching the Constitution (2010)
Understanding the 25th Amendment, Law.com,
http://constitution.laws.com/american-history/constitution/constitutional-amendments/25th-amendment
United
States Constitution and Citizenship Day: 25th Amendment,
http://www.usconstitutionday.us/p/25th-amendment.html
Amendment
26: Voting Age
The 26th Amendment
establishes the voting age at the age of 18, rather than 21 as it was
previously. The amendment was proposed
in 1971, in an attempt to respond to student activism against the Vietnam War. Originally, President Nixon had signed a law
making the voting age 18, but a number of States challenged the law, and under
pressure the amendment was proposed and ratified.
The slogan, "Old enough
to fight, old enough to vote," which surfaced as far back as World War II,
had finally become a worn-out enough slogan that the majority began to support
it. Arguments of various viewpoints
regarding the wisdom of this amendment continue to this day, but one thing is
clear, the original argument of “Old enough to fight, old enough to vote,” was
a ruse.
The Democrat Party was in
trouble, and desperate for votes.
President Nixon was wildly popular.
The 1972 election was coming, and the Democrats needed to find a way to
gain more votes, and to gain them fast.
The college-aged population
was protesting against the war. The
younger generation, molded by left-leaning public school teachers, and leftist
college professors, were ripe for the picking, but most of them were too young
to vote. The Democrats knew that if the
protesting students could vote, they would vote for the Democrat candidate for
president, and give the Democrats a fighting chance to gain seats in
Congress. The push for the 26th
Amendment, though in part about “old enough to fight, old enough to vote,” was
in reality an attempt to gain more votes for the Democrats. However, despite the ratification of the
amendment in time for the election allowing people as low as the age of
eighteen to vote, Richard Nixon still won the election in 1972 by a landslide.
Questions
for Discussion:
1. How has the
inclusion of voters over 18 and under 21 influenced politics?
2. Was the “old
enough to fight, old enough to vote” campaign a new campaign?
3. Did he
political strategy being the 26th Amendment succeed?
4. Why do you
suppose the Democrats targeted the vote of the younger generation?
Resources:
Joseph
Andrews, A Guide for Learning and
Teaching The Declaration of
Independence and The U.S. Constitution - Learning from the Original
Texts Using Classical Learning Methods of the Founders; San
Marcos: The Center for Teaching the Constitution (2010)
Larry
Schweikart and Michael Allen, A Patriot’s
History of the United
States; New York: Sentinel (2004)
Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote, Nixon
Foundation,
http://blog.nixonfoundation.org/2014/06/old-enough-fight-old-enough-vote/
Repeal the 26th Amendment! by Anne Coulter, Townhall,
http://townhall.com/columnists/anncoulter/2010/11/10/repeal_the_26th_amendment%21
Youth Vote: Dems’ Secret Weapon 40 Years in the
Making? by Carl M.
Cannon,
Real Clear Politics, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2011/03/25/youth_vote_dems_delayed_time_release_capsule.html
Amendment
27: Congressional Salaries
The 27th Amendment prohibits
any law that increases or decreases the salary of members of the Congress from
taking effect until the start of the next set of terms of office for
Representatives. Ratified in 1992, the
proposal remained in waiting for 203 years after its initial submission in
1789.
The reason for ratification
was anger over a Congressional pay raise.
Wyoming became the last State to ratify the amendment. Four States (California, Rhode Island,
Hawaii, and Washington) ratified the amendment after the required number of
States was met.
A battle
over whether or not cost of living increases are affected by this amendment
continues to this day. Currently, cost
of living increases take effect immediately, without a vote.
Questions for Discussion:
1. How does the 27th Amendment protect against
corruption?
2. Why do you think it took so long to ratify
the amendment?
3. Is Congress voting itself raises still a
concern among voters?
Resources:
Amendment
XXVII: Congressional Compensation, United States
History, http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h924.html
Joseph
Andrews, A Guide for Learning and
Teaching The Declaration of
Independence and The U.S. Constitution - Learning from the Original
Texts Using Classical Learning Methods of the Founders; San
Marcos: The Center for Teaching the Constitution (2010)
Members
of Congress Haven’t Had a Raise in Years, by Jesse Rifkin,
USA Today, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2013/08/15/congress-pay-salaries/2660545/
Notes on the 27th Amendment, Constitution of the
United States
“Charters
of Freedom”, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_amendment_27.html
Understanding
the 27th Amendment, Laws.com,
http://constitution.laws.com/american-history/constitution/constitutional-amendments/27th-amendment
Copyright 2015 Douglas V. Gibbs
