Some five weeks into the Presidency of Donald J. Trump, a Gallup poll shows him with a historically low approval rate—about forty per cent, far worse than any predecessor at this point in his Administration since Gallup began asking the question, in 1953, at the start of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first term. It’s predictably Trumpian, then, that his response to that embarrassing measure of unpopularity was yet another goofy tweet, this one calling for a rally of his supporters: “It would be the biggest of them all!” Perhaps he thinks a big, obedient crowd might lessen the rage that he’s managed to unleash from his non-supporters—a significant majority—almost from the moment of his swearing-in.

Americans, from time to time, do get very angry with their Presidents, but never, in modern memory, as fervently or as quickly as with this one. That may have something to do with the cruelty, and carelessness, of the policies that he lets loose, such as the so-called Muslim ban, which has so far been blocked by the courts, or the sudden reneging of promises like the one he made to protect gay, lesbian, and transgender rights, which affect some of the nation’s most vulnerable citizens. It means something that so much commentary, coming so quickly, concerns ways to undo the results of the election. But apart from impeachment, or the Twenty-fifth Amendment, which I examined recently, there is no legal remedy if the nation loses confidence in its elected leader.

Or not yet. But, some sixty-six years ago, in the midst of another political firestorm, a senator named Robert C. Hendrickson, a New Jersey Republican, came up with a proposal for another path: a constitutional amendment that would allow Americans, by popular vote, to recall a President, in much the way that voters in nineteen states, the District of Columbia, and many localities may recall their elected officials.

The Hendrickson proposal came in late April, 1951, soon after President Harry Truman fired his Far East commander, General Douglas MacArthur, during the Korean War. The response from Republican officials tended toward outrage, both feigned and genuine. The perpetually anti-Truman Chicago Tribune, in a front-page editorial, reflected some of the day’s Zeitgeist when it said that Truman “must be impeached and convicted,” that MacArthur’s dismissal was “the culmination of a series of acts which have shown that he is unfit, morally and mentally, for high office,” and that the nation was being “led by a fool who is surrounded by knaves.” A sort of populist anger, not limited to Republicans, was widespread, and reached a peak when MacArthur addressed a joint session of Congress, after which one Midwestern congressman told a reporter that “we saw a great hunk of God in the flesh, and we heard the voice of God.” But enthusiasm for impeachment quickly cooled, to be replaced by the view—which became the view of history—that the seventy-one-year-old MacArthur had been guilty of repeated acts of disrespect and outright insubordination. After all, Truman, with full support from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had simply asserted the principle of civilian control over the military.

Hendrickson, who won his first and only Senate term in 1948, introduced his proposal as a Senate resolution; riding the first wave of Truman-phobia, he said that it would “provide a way out when the people have lost confidence in the Administration.” He didn’t mention the President by name, but he didn’t need to. “This nation,” he said, “is faced in these times with such rapidly changing conditions and such critical decisions that we cannot afford to depend upon an Administration which had lost the confidence of the American people.” Hendrickson also said that “we have had ample evidence over the years that elected representatives, especially those with great power, can easily fall into the pitfall of believing that their will is more important than the will of the people,” and in those circumstances “impeachment has proved neither suitable nor desirable.”

Under Hendrickson’s plan, a nationwide recall vote would be held when the legislatures of two-thirds of the states demanded it, with each state then having a number of votes equal to its total number of senators and representatives—similar, that is, to the Electoral College. His proposal came, and went, some sixteen years before the Twenty-fifth Amendment was ratified. But without reference to any particular era or President, it is an idea whose time may have come: a way to assert the power of the ballot if the government tries to seize powers beyond constitutional limits. It might never be tested. There have been just three gubernatorial recall attempts in the past hundred years, and only two in modern times: in 2003, California Governor Gray Davis was defeated in a recall election by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Austrian immigrant who recently replaced Trump on “Celebrity Apprentice”; in 2012, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, who had angered unions when the state’s public employees lost benefits and collective-bargaining rights, won his recall race.

Today a Presidential recall would represent another option if a leader were to fall short because of inattention, dementia, insanity, or worse. “In an atomic age,” Hendrickson argued, “four years is too long a time to wait for the correction of policies which the people feel they cannot bear.” One might think of it, along with impeachment and the Twenty-fifth Amendment, as a part of an “electoral triad”—the ultimate no-confidence weapon, one that might never have to be deployed, but a useful addition, at least in principle, to the arsenal of democratic last resort.