National Committee Against Limiting the Presidency Records

The records of the National Committee Against Limiting the Presidency include correspondence, press clippings, a pamphlet, and other documents mostly concerning opposition to the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution.

Size: 5 linear inches (about 300 pages).
Access: Open.
Copyright: No donation of copyright was received with this collection. Documents created by U.S. Government employees in the course of their official duties are in the public domain. Copyright interest in other documents in this collection presumably belongs to the creators of those documents, or their heirs.
Processed by: Phil Lagerquist (1963); David Clark (2018).
Updated by: Elizabeth Endecott (2018) as part of the Truman Library Internship Program.
Supervising Archivists: Randy Sowell and David Clark.

The National Committee Against Limiting the Presidency was an organization that actively oppose ratification of the 22nd Amendment (which limited Presidents to two elected terms in office) when the measure was considered in the state legislatures between 1947 and 1951. Daniel Francis Clancy, Director of the National Committee Against Limiting the Presidency, was the most active member of the organization. Harold Ickes was active as well, second only to Clancy. Other members included Maury Maverick of Texas, Joseph Guffey of Pennsylvania, the former Democratic Senator Michael Francis Doyle, and Kenesaw M. Landis II of Indiana. The primary purpose of Clancy's committee was to present opposition to ratification of the 22nd Amendment by publicizing their arguments against it and conducting annual letter-writing campaign aimed at key state legislatures throughout the country.

The records of the National Committee Against Limiting the Presidency include correspondence, press clippings, a pamphlet, and other documents mostly concerning the organization and its opposition to the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, which limited Presidents to two elected terms. The collection is arranged in one series, a Subject File, organized alphabetically by folder title.

The Subject File contains Clancy's correspondence with other Committee members (including Harold Ickes, Michael Francis Doyle, Maury Maverick, Joseph Guffey, and Kenesaw M. Landis II), key state officials, and professors from various colleges and universities throughout the country. The most extensive correspondence consists of letters between Clancy and Ickes, containing reports on how debates over the 22nd Amendment were going in state legislatures, and letters from state legislators reporting on whether their legislatures had considered or acted on the amendment. The correspondence in the Subject File consists mostly of letters and postcards received by Clancy, but also includes carbon copies of outgoing correspondence.

The Subject File also contains press clippings relating to state decisions on the 22nd Amendment and editorials from newspapers. A pamphlet detailing the Committee's stance on the 22nd Amendment is included in the files, as well as postcards requesting copies of the pamphlet.

More information about the 22nd Amendment can be found in the Harry S. Truman Papers, in Official File 101-L and in the Speech File of the Post-Presidential Papers (May 4, 1959).