“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” is a statement and an observation from John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Action.
Sir John Dalberg-Action was writing from the perspective of historian and politician as well as a writer. He understood the lessons of history regarding the use and abuse of power by those with power.
The founding fathers, in an effort to escape the possibility that power became too concentrated in the hands of few deliberately created a system of government divided into three separate branches: The Congress, The Supreme Court, and The Presidency. Steps were taken to ensure that the three branches and those operating within the same were accountable to the people and to one another, thus, minimizing the risk that any one branch of government would/could become too powerful resulting in a lack of accountability.
Today, it is taken for granted that any one person can only be elected to two terms as president at the most. But surprisingly, it was long a matter of custom that the opposite was true until ratified in an amendment, February 27th, 1951.
The 22nd Amendment mandates – “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.”
By limiting the number of terms that any one person could run for the office of president the idea that America would ever be subjected to a ‘would-be king’ or a ‘president for life’ was soundly rejected.
Sig Nordal 