Woodrow Wilson: The Founder of Big Government | 5-Minute Videos
As America’s 28th president, Woodrow Wilson greatly expanded the size and scope of the federal government. How did he do it, and why? RJ Pestritto, professor of politics at Hillsdale College, answers this important question.
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Script:
Few American leaders have stirred more controversy than Woodrow Wilson, the 28th president of the United States. Many admire him, many don’t. But one point on which everyone agrees is his profound impact on American history.
The reasons for the controversy and the impact are one and the same.
Wilson and his generation of leaders were the first to challenge the founding principles of the country. It’s not an exaggeration to say that Wilson turned them upside down.
As expressed in the Declaration of Independence, the Founders believed that individuals are born with certain unalienable rights. And they framed the Constitution to protect those rights.
For Wilson, the time of individual rights had passed. In his view, 18th-century America had little relevance to early 20th-century America. The country, now much bigger and more complex, required the guidance of a benevolent government.
America had literally outgrown the Founders.
Wilson’s philosophy — of which he was a leading proponent — was known as Progressivism. And Wilson proudly called himself a Progressive.
Where did Wilson get these ideas? From the place where he spent most of his life: the halls of academia. He was the only US president to come into office with a Ph.D.
Born in Staunton, Virginia on December 28, 1856, Woodrow Wilson had two ambitions: to teach and to write. He received his undergraduate degree from Princeton with the vague notion that he would become a lawyer. But like another, earlier president, John Quincy Adams, Wilson found the law much too arid for his active mind. To the chagrin of his father, he returned to academia to get an advanced degree at Johns Hopkins.
There his thinking took form. He was deeply influenced by Charles Darwin’s new theory of evolution. At Hopkins this theory was applied to government: just as a species must adapt — or progress — to survive, so must a government. Not to recognize this would be to hold America back, to stunt its growth, or, to close the metaphor, risk extinction.
This was one of the major themes in Wilson’s Ph.D. thesis, which he turned into an influential book titled “Congressional Government: A Study in American Politics.” This book launched his academic career, which culminated in his appointment as president of Princeton in 1902.
As happy as he was at Princeton, Wilson longed to put his progressive ideas to the test, hence his move into politics. There his rise was truly meteoric. In 1910, he ran successfully for governor of New Jersey as a Democrat. Once in office, he surprised everyone with his impressive political skills, scoring one policy victory after another, while also fighting New Jersey’s notoriously corrupt political machine.
Reforming workers’ compensation, limiting how much money corporations could spend on elections, and putting utilities under state supervision were only three of the progressive ideas he pushed through the legislature. His success attracted the attention of Progressives nationwide. In 1912, the Democratic Party, desperate to end a sixteen-year losing streak, turned to Wilson as its nominee.
The chances of Wilson winning that election against a united Republican Party were slim, but the electoral calculus changed dramatically when former Republican president Teddy Roosevelt decided to run against his own hand-picked successor, the current Republican President, William Taft.
TR’s campaign was the most successful third-party run in American history, but all it accomplished was to split the Republicans and give Wilson an easy victory. He won with 42% of the popular vote, the lowest percentage since Lincoln.
In just three years, Wilson had risen from president of Princeton to President of the United States.
As he did as governor, he immediately went to work.
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He sold usa to the zionist jews.
Another of many racist examples of the left. They continue to this day to segregate minorities, while Republicans will never stop trying reintegration.
Down with big corrupt bloated government.
Wrong! Big government started with Novus Ordo Seclorum Theodore Roosevelt. A Bill of Rights hating Fabian Progressive.
Wilson, one of our worst presidents! I like Teddy Roosevelt, but he never should've run on that Bull Moose third party ticket. As the video said, it split the Republican vote and gave Wilson the presidency. Bad move T.R.
Income tax , the Fed, FBI, EPA…
The damage this guy has done is unbelievable
Wilson was a total racist.
Hello
How can you discuss Wilson's Presidency without including his "alter ego" Colonel House? The answer is, you can't. Yet, you did it anyway. Read the "Colonel's" (he was never in any military organization) auto biography 'Philip Dru: Administrator'. Even better, read Douglas Reed's 'The Controversy Of Zion'.
I find it interesting that he was an evolutionist. That explains a lot. The left hates God and the bible.
I would have like to see some mention of the fact that his election campaign slogan in 1916 was "He kept us out of war" and then he signed the declaration of war that got use into World War I shortly after his second term began He used the fact that we were is a shooting war to fight a war on civil liberties.
There is no one "founder of big government". The American people have continually expected more from government since the age of Jackson.
I am so ashamed that in 9th grade, I said he was a great president. I basically ignored his bad policies and went with the good. But he did very little good. His moral character is awful. He was even more racist than people at the time, a eugenicit, a big government efficinado, and an absolute narcissistic moron who never cared about anyone but himself.
Everyone know thay fantasy about traveling back in time and killing baby hitler? Yea well….
A dreadful pathetic traitor to our Constitution
Neglect to mention that Theodore Roosevelt was the one who really attacked big businesses and established regulations that we still see destroying great businesses today. Wilson did nothing so glaringly malicious
Really big government got started under FDR and his socialistic New Deal in the guise of "regulated capitalism". And its grown like cancer ever since.
He's a world-class traitor.
He resurrected the unfinished work of the "fireeaters" (Calhoun et al) that Black people were not included in the great charter of the American republic.
Woodrew Wilson is one of the most destructive presidents ever many of the problems we have today like with the federal reserve is thanks to him.
President Wilson's decision to take the United States into WWI was the worst mistake ever made by an American president.
My second least favorite president, he was truly terrible.
So it isn’t all Biden’s fault after all… it’s this guys fault.
In 1913, Woodrow Wilson takes us into World War One!
He pushed the Fed and the league of nations too
Woodrow Wilson = crazy white man!
Wilson bringing banks under fed control by making the federal reserve system seems inaccurate because the fed reserve isn't controlled by our govt
This precedent was a nazi in a Racist of black people
If TR had fulfilled his promise not to run again (after Taft's term), in 1912, Taft would have been re-elected and Wilson would have (most likely) lost. But, TR and Taft split the conservative vote which allowed Wilson to sneak in the side door. Of course, he might have run in 1916 and won, but who knows, as he did win re-election in 1916. It is what it is.
i absolutely despise woodrow wilson
BIG GOVERNMENT IS THE RESULT OF THE IDIOTIC MASSES.
Also don’t forget that Woodrow Wilson was a Klansman. And played the first movie in the White House called the birth of a nation (a movie about the Klan).
Wilson was a vicious racist worse than LBJ.
Wow! I had no idea that one man was so integral in destroying America.
"[Besides Joke Briben] America's other mentally-incapacitated, bigot war-monger President"
-Tucker Carlson describing Woodrow Wilson (accurately)
Forgive me if you've covered this.
"In 1919, U.S. president Woodrow Wilson won the Nobel Peace Prize for his role as the leading architect of the League [of Nations]", an organization whose purpose was to resolve conflicts around the world. Their stated method would have been through world governance, much like the attempted implementation of the "new world order" being foisted upon us now by the U.N. and W.E.F. Enjoy the crickets.
"President Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act in December 1913, culminating three years of
discussion and debate over the development of a central bank."
It was the product of a secret meeting (the attendees wouldn't admit that it occurred until 1930) on Jekyll Island by extremely wealthy bankers.
Birth Of A Nation, originally The Clansmen:
"After seeing the film, an enthusiastic Wilson reportedly remarked: 'It is like writing history with lightning, and my only regret is that it is all so terribly true."'
"It falsified the period of Reconstruction by presenting blacks as dominating Southern whites (almost all of whom are noble in the film) and sexually forcing themselves upon white women. The Klan was portrayed as the South's savior from this alleged tyranny."
Concerning black Americans, Wilson once famously said "If the [n-words] don't like us they can demonstrate that at the polls". I've looked that up on wikki. It has since been scrubbed.
Variously sourced in quotes.