Up until the presidency of which individual could the president serve more than two full terms, later rectified by the Twenty-Second Amendment?

• A. George Washington
• B. Franklin D. Roosevelt
• C. Thomas Jefferson
• D. Woodrow Wilson

Answer: (B)

The idea being tested is how term limits came to be and why Roosevelt’s presidency matters. Before the Twenty-Second Amendment, there was no constitutional cap on how many terms a president could serve; Washington set the powerful tradition of not seeking more than two terms, but that was an unwritten rule, not a law. Franklin D. Roosevelt is the president who famously served four terms, showing that a president could stay in office for more than two full terms. That demonstrated the practical possibility of extended incumbency and spurred the move to put a formal limit in the Constitution. The Twenty-Second Amendment then established that limit, restricting future presidents to two terms (with a provision for a maximum of ten years in certain succession cases). So Roosevelt is the figure whose presidency demonstrated the beyond-two-term possibility, leading to the amendment.