A predecessor of modern term limits in the Americas dates back to the 1682 Pennsylvania Charter of Liberties and the colonial frame of government of the same year, authored by William Penn and providing for triennial rotation of the Provincial Council, the upper house of the colonial legislature.Francis N. Thorpe, ed., The Federal and State Constitutions, Colonial Charters, and other Organic Laws..., 7 vols. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1909) 5:3048, 3055–56, 3065. Presidents of the United States typically honored an informal tradition of only serving two terms in office, but this limit was not enshrined into law until the 22nd Amendment to the Constitution was ratified in 1951 after Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to an unprecedented third and fourth terms.
