The government imprisoned or fined violators of the law and even censored or banned mainstream publications. Believing that this revolutionary program required his personal support, Wilson decided that he would lead the American peace delegation to Paris, becoming the first president ever to go to Europe while in office. Despite Wilson's best efforts, however, the Treaty of Versailles, signed in June , departed significantly from the Fourteen Points, leaving both the Germans and many Americans bitterly disillusioned.
Following his return to the United States in July , Wilson presented the treaty to the Senate and spent much of the summer trying to build bipartisan support among senators for its approval, arguing that although imperfect, it was better than the sort of punitive treaty the British and French would have imposed on Germany. In September, having little success in winning Senate votes, Wilson began an arduous speaking tour to build public interest in the treaty and to promote US participation in the new League of Nations.
Near the end of the tour, Wilson collapsed from exhaustion, and a few days later, after returning to the White House, he suffered a massive stroke. For the last seventeen months of his term, he was essentially incapacitated, prompting an unprecedented constitutional crisis over presidential disability. Wilson became an isolated figure, seeing almost no one except his doctors and his second wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, who became a kind of surrogate president through whom he conducted public business.
Refusing to compromise with the Senate on amendments to the treaty, Wilson eventually told his supporters to vote against it. The Senate voted twice on the treaty—in November and March —defeating it both times.
Thus, the United States never joined the international organization that Wilson had viewed as the keystone of his new world order.
Though he left office broken and defeated, Wilson believed firmly that the American people would eventually embrace his vision of America leading a world community of nations. Twenty-five years later, the United Nations built its headquarters in New York, a tangible symbol of the bipartisan support that Wilsonian ideals had gained after a second world war. But Wilson's legacy was not confined to foreign policy. His progressive domestic programs helped stabilize and humanize a huge industrial system, and his success in making the presidency the intellectual and political center of the American government enabled the United States to deal effectively with the challenges and threats of the modern world.
Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A. His reputation as a reformer made him a leading candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in Wilson entered the Baltimore convention in July trailing Speaker of the U. House of Representatives Champ Clark, of Missouri, but neither had the necessary two-thirds of all votes to win the nomination.
On the forty-sixth ballot, Wilson finally secured the nomination when party reformers, including three-time nominee William Jennings Bryan, threw their support behind him.
Wilson and Roosevelt hotly debated the issue of business trusts, or monopolies, and toward the end of the campaign, Roosevelt survived an assassination attempt, rising to speak even while his shirt was stained with his own blood. In the end, the Republicans split the vote between Taft and Roosevelt, and Wilson won easily with 42 percent of the popular vote. Wilson entered office on March 4, , with a lengthy reform agenda and a Democratic majority in Congress.
Wilson pushed through Congress the Federal Reserve Act, instituting a system of regional banks overseen by presidential appointees. He also established the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Trade Commission, and reduced tariff rates to lower the cost of living for consumers. In addition, Wilson took on social reform. He is credited with the eight-hour work day and a law banning child labor.
And, during his second term, he supported the Nineteenth Amendment to the U. Constitution, granting women the right to vote. It was ratified in Although remembered largely as a reformer, Wilson was responsible for notoriously regressive policies with regard to race. At Princeton, he had presided over the only major northern university not to admit black students, even actively discouraging black applicants, and as U.
When Congress failed to pass it, he used his executive authority to segregate the federal government, pushing blacks out of positions that traditionally had been reserved for them. In , Wilson viewed the new motion picture Birth of a Nation , directed by D. Griffith and infamous for its negative portrayal of African Americans and its glorification of the Ku Klux Klan.
Wilson sank into a deep depression that lasted until the following spring, when he met a local widow, Edith Bolling Galt, a native of Wytheville, Virginia. They were married in her Washington home on December 18, The major issue in the presidential election was the war in Europe, which had begun in August Britain seized American cargos while German submarines sank ships carrying food to Britain. In May a German submarine sank the British passenger liner Lusitania , killing nearly 1, people, including Americans.
Popular opinion in America, which had long been isolationist, now supported war against Germany. Wilson remained cautious and only demanded that Germany no longer sink civilian ships without warning, to which Germany agreed.
The difference in several states was between a few hundred and a few thousand votes, and the result was in doubt for three days.
Theodore Roosevelt claimed that the only difference between Wilson and his bearded opponent, Charles Evans Hughes, was a shave. Two months later, in January , Germany declared that it would resume unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking any ship nearing Britain. Wilson broke off relations with Germany but still hesitated to seek a declaration of war. Although Wilson spent nearly twenty years at Princeton, he had never given up his dream to become a statesman.
However, until this time, he had never had the opportunity to jump into politics. Senator Smith served as the party's boss. The Democrats in the state had suffered heavy losses in the polls in previous years, and they desperately needed a fresh candidate who could reinvigorate the party.
True, the president of Princeton was essentially unheard of in political circles, as he had never held a public position and had never served in the bureaucracy. Yet Wilson had already earned a reputation as a reformer and a champion of the people during his widely publicized crusade to transform the university's snobbish and undemocratic eating clubs.
Wilson was the perfect candidate for them. In exchange for his help, Smith and Harvey offered Wilson a shot at the White House in the upcoming elections. Much as they had in New Jersey, the Democrats had not held much national power since the last Democratic president served in the late s. Wilson had always dreamed of becoming President of the United States, and seized the opportunity these men presented. Wilson agreed to the proposal and soon resigned from his position at Princeton to campaign.
The campaign itself was wholly uneventful. Codey January 12, - January 15, Learn More. John O. Bennett January 8, - January 12, Learn More. Donald T. Thomas H. Kean January 16, - January 16, Learn More. Search For Former Governors This searchable database identifies former governors by state and dates of service.
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