 | Woodrow Wilson: Encyclopedia II - Woodrow Wilson - Political writings and academic career
Woodrow Wilson - Political writings and academic career
Wilson came of age in the decades after the Civil War, when Congress was supreme—"the gist of all policy is decided by the legislature"—and corruption rampant. Instead of focusing on individuals in explaining where American politics went wrong, Wilson focused on the American constitutional structure. (Congressional Government, 180)
Under the influence of Walter Bagehot's The English Constitution, Wilson saw the American Constitution as pre-modern, cumbersome, and open to corruption. Before the vigorous presidencies of the turn of the 20th century, Wilson even favored a parliamentary system for the United States. Writing in the early 1880s, in a journal edited by Henry Cabot Lodge, Wilson wrote
"I ask you to put this question to yourselves, should we not draw the Executive and Legislature closer together? Should we not, on the one hand, give the individual leaders of opinion in Congress a better chance to have an intimate party in determining who should be president, and the president, on the other hand, a better chance to approve himself a statesman, and his advisors capable men of affairs, in the guidance of Congress?" (the Politics of Woodrow Wilson, 41–48)
Wilson started Congressional Government, his best known political work, as an argument for a parliamentary system, but Wilson was impressed by Grover Cleveland, and Congressional Government emerged as a critical description of America's system, with frequent negative comparisons to Westminster. Wilson himself claimed, "I am pointing out facts,—diagnosing, not prescribing, remedies.". (Congressional Government, 205)
Wilson believed that America's intricate system of checks and balances was the cause of the problems in American governance. He said that the divided power made it impossible for voters to see who was accountable for ill-doing. If government behaved badly, Wilson asked,
"...how is the schoolmaster, the nation, to know which boy needs the whipping? ... Power and strict accountability for its use are the essential constituents of good government.... It is, therefore, manifestly a radical defect in our federal system that it parcels out power and confuses responsibility as it does. The main purpose of the Convention of 1787 seems to have been to accomplish this grievous mistake. The 'literary theory' of checks and balances is simply a consistent account of what our Constitution makers tried to do; and those checks and balances have proved mischievous just to the extent which they have succeeded in establishing themselves... [the Framers] would be the first to admit that the only fruit of dividing power had been to make it irresponsible." (ibid, 186–7)
The longest section of Congressional Government is on the United States House of Representatives, where Wilson pours out scorn for the committee system. Power, Wilson wrote, "is divided up, as it were, into forty-seven seigniories, in each of which a Standing Committee is the court baron and its chairman lord proprietor. These petty barons, some of them not a little powerful, but none of them within reach the full powers of rule, may at will exercise an almost despotic sway within their own shires, and may sometimes threaten to convulse even the realm itself." (ibid, 76). Wilson said that the committee system was fundamentally undemocratic, because committee chairs, who ruled by seniority, were responsible to no one except their constituents, even though they determined national policy.
In addition to their undemocratic nature, Wilson also believed that the Committee System facilitated corruption.
"the voter, moreover, feels that his want of confidence in Congress is justified by what he hears of the power of corrupt lobbyists to turn legislation to their own uses. He hears of enormous subsidies begged and obtained... of appropriations made in the interest of dishonest contractors; he is not altogether unwarranted in the conclusion that these are evils inherent in the very nature of Congress; there can be no doubt that the power of the lobbyist consists in great part, if not altogether, in the facility afforded him by the Committee system. (ibid, 132)
But by the time Wilson finished Congressional Government, Grover Cleveland was president, and Wilson had his faith in the United States government restored. By the time he became president, Wilson had seen vigorous presidencies from William McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt, and Wilson no longer entertained thoughts of parliamentary government at home. In his last scholarly work in 1908, Constitutional Government of the United States, Wilson said that the presidency "will be as big as and as influential as the man who occupies it". By the time of his presidency, Wilson merely hoped that presidents could be party leaders in the same way prime ministers were. Wilson also hoped that the parties could be reorganized along ideological, not geographic, lines. "Eight words," Wilson wrote, "contain the sum of the present degradation of our political parties: No leaders, no principles; no principles, no parties." (Frozen Republic, 145)
Wilson served on the faculties of Bryn Mawr College and Wesleyan University before joining the Princeton faculty as professor of jurisprudence and political economy in 1890. A popular teacher and respected scholar, Wilson delivered an oration at Princeton's sesquicentennial celebration (1896) entitled "Princeton in the Nation's Service". (This has become a frequently alluded-to motto of the University, sometimes expanded to "Princeton in the World's Service.") In this famous speech, he outlined his vision of the university in a democratic nation, calling on institutions of higher learning "to illuminate duty by every lesson that can be drawn out of the past".
Wilson was unanimously elected President of Princeton on June 9, 1902. In his inaugural address as Princeton's president, Wilson developed these themes, attempting to strike a balance that would please both populists and aristocrats in the audience.
As Princeton President, Wilson began a fund-raising campaign to bolster the university corporation. The curriculum guidelines he developed during his tenure as president of Princeton proved among the most important innovations in the field of higher education. He instituted the now common system of core requirements followed by two years of concentration in a selected area. However, when he attempted to curtail the influence of the elitist "social clubs", Wilson met with resistance from trustees and potential donors. He believed the system was smothering the intellectual and moral life of the undergraduates. Opposition from wealthy and powerful alumni further convinced Wilson of the undesirability of exclusiveness and moved him towards a more populist position in his politics.
Other related archives$100, 000 bill, 1856, 1879, 1885, 1886, 1902, 1911, 1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1918, 1919, 1921, 1924, 1934, 1961, 1968, 25th amendment, Abraham Lincoln, Allies, American Federation of Labor, American Political Science Association, Andrew Jackson, Arkhangelsk, August 6, Augusta, Georgia, Bratislava, Bryan-Chamorro Treaty, Bryn Mawr College, Capital Beltway, Central Powers, Champ Clark, Civil War, Clayton Antitrust Act, Columbia, South Carolina, Confederate, Congress, Convention of 1787, Creel Commission, Cuba, Czechoslovakia, Davidson College, December 18, December 28, Democrat, Democratic, District of Columbia, Edith Bolling Galt, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, Embassy Row, Espionage Act of 1917, Eugene V. Debs, Europe, European Parliament, February 3, Federal Farm Loan Act, Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916, Federal Reserve Act of 1913, Federal Reserve System, Federal Trade Commission, Fourteen Points, France, Francis B. Sayre, General Lee's, George Creel, Germany, Governor of New Jersey, Great War, Grover Cleveland, Haiti, Henry Cabot Lodge, Herbert Hoover, History of the United States (1865–1918), Interstate 95, James Clark McReynolds, James Madison University, January 8, Jefferson Davis, Jefferson Society, John Hessin Clarke, John J. Pershing, Johns Hopkins University, Joseph Patrick Tumulty, June 24, June 9, Latin America, League of Nations, Louis Dembitz Brandeis, Magna Carta, Maryland, May 7, Mexico, Murmansk, Nicaragua, Nobel Peace Prize, Northern Ireland, November 25, October 2, Ohio, Palmer Raids, Panama, Paris Peace Conference, Paris, France, Phi Kappa Psi, Potomac River, Prague, Presbyterian, President, President of the United States, Princeton, Princeton University, Red Scare, Republican, Revenue Act of 1913, Russia, Russian civil war, SSBN, Samuel Gompers, Savannah, Georgia, Scots-Irish, Secretary of the Treasury, Sedition Act of 1918, Sigmund Freud, Silent Sentinels, Slovakia, Smithsonian Institution, South, Staunton, Virginia, Strabane, Strasbourg, Supreme Court of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas R. Marshall, Treaty of Versailles, Trustbusters, U.S. presidential election, 1912, U.S. presidential election, 1916, USS Woodrow Wilson (SSBN-624), Union Army, United States House of Representatives, University of Virginia, Versailles, Vice President, Virginia, Vladivostok, Walter Bagehot, Walter Lippmann, War in Europe, Warren G. Harding, Washington National Cathedral, Wesleyan University, Westminster, White, White House, William Bullitt, William G. McAdoo, William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, William McKinley, Woodrow Wilson Bridge, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Woodrow Wilson Presidential Library, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, World War I, Zimmermann Telegram, antitrust, cabinet, checks and balances, conscription, constitutional, dyslexia, fraternal organization, higher education, hyphenated Americans, jurisprudence, parliamentary system, political economy, presidential election of 1912, prime ministers, reelection in 1916, segregation, shorthand, stroke, submarine, suffrage amendment, tariff, the worst period of racism in American history, women's suffrage
 Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Political writings and academic career", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki |
