Five-minute digest

First Inaugural Address

Woodrow Wilson

Summary

Woodrow Wilson took the oath on the East Portico on 4 March 1913, the first Democrat inaugurated since Grover Cleveland in 1893. He had won the 1912 election against a Republican Party split between William Howard Taft and Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive campaign, and his party now controlled both houses of Congress as well. He opens by asking what the "change of government" means and answers that it means more than "the mere success of a party." The speech moves from praise to confession. American life is great in wealth, in energy, in voluntary charity, and in a system of government long admired abroad. "But the evil has come with the good, and much fine gold has been corroded." Waste of natural resources, the "human cost" borne in mines and factories, and a government "too often" used for private and selfish purposes are named in turn. Wilson then itemizes what he means to change: the tariff, the banking and currency system, an industrial order that restricts labor and squanders resources, neglected agriculture, and untended forests and waterways. He insists these are matters of justice, not sentiment: "The firm basis of government is justice, not pity." Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and laws on conditions of labor belong to "the very business of justice." Yet the method is to "restore, not destroy," working "step by step" on the economy as it actually is. The close lifts the program into a vow: "This is not a day of triumph; it is a day of dedication." Wilson summons "all honest men" to his side and ends, "God helping me," with a promise not to fail them. Readers can weigh his confidence that federal power can serve justice against older republican fears of concentrated authority.

Top Lessons

Counting the human cost
Wilson's central confession is that Americans measured production and forgot the lives "snuffed out" and energies "overtaxed and broken" in mines and factories. The lesson is moral bookkeeping: national greatness must be weighed by what it costs persons, not only by output.
Related across the library
- Reflections on the Revolution in France, Lesson: Affection begins in the little platoon
  Affection begins in the little platoon. Public spirit, Burke says, grows outward from love of the small groups to which we belong, the family, the neighbourhood, the order or profession, toward love of country and of mankind. A politics that dissolves these attachments in the name of the nation weakens the very affections it needs.
- Amelia, Lesson: Private virtue and public corruption
  Private virtue and public corruption. Debt law and patronage shape private morals. Students can connect Fielding's magistrate experience to the plot.
- The Republic, Lesson: Politics begins in psychology
  Politics begins in psychology. The Republic treats constitutions as enlarged souls. Plato teaches that public order and inner order are mutually illuminating.
- The Conservative Mind, Lesson: Intellectual history
  Intellectual history. The book shows how ideas pass from writer to writer across generations. Students can trace a single idea through several authors.
- A History of Philosophy, Vol. VIII: Bentham to Russell, Lesson: Counting pleasures and weighing persons
  Counting pleasures and weighing persons. Copleston sets out Bentham's hope of reforming law by calculating pleasures and pains, and Mill's attempt to rescue the theory by ranking pleasures in quality. The chapters let students see both the moral seriousness of the reformers and the difficulty of deriving duty, justice and the dignity of the single person from the sum of happiness.
Justice, not pity
Wilson refuses to call health and labor laws charity. He grounds them in justice: society must not "crush or weaken or damage its own constituent parts." Students can examine whether this argument changes the meaning of reform or only its label.
Related across the library
- History of Friedrich II of Prussia, Called Frederick the Great, Lesson: Silesia and Poland: admiring without excusing
  Silesia and Poland: admiring without excusing. Carlyle defends the invasion of Silesia in 1740 as the recovery of old Hohenzollern claims and treats the Partition of Poland as the end of a hopeless anarchy. Many historians have judged both as plain acts of power. Students should first state Carlyle's case fully, then weigh it against the claims of treaty, law and neighbourly justice.
- The Rover, Act III, Sc. III (the garden at night)
  Willmore enters drunk, describes himself as a little 'disguis'd', and uses his state to argue that an unpremeditated act carries no sin; Florinda's resistance and the arrival of Belvile end the scene.
- Trustees of Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Opinion of the Court (Marshall, C.J.), on the nature of a corporation
  A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Chief Justice Marshall explains what a corporation is before asking whether incorporation made the college a public body.
- Reflections on the Revolution in France, Lesson: Affection begins in the little platoon
  Affection begins in the little platoon. Public spirit, Burke says, grows outward from love of the small groups to which we belong, the family, the neighbourhood, the order or profession, toward love of country and of mankind. A politics that dissolves these attachments in the name of the nation weakens the very affections it needs.
- The Moonstone, Full Text
  try to communicate again when the house is quiet I want to be in the way and stop it Don t blame me for upsetting your sleeping arrangements Mr Betteredge blame the Diamond I wish to God the Diamond had never found its way into this house I broke out Sergeant Cuff looked with a rueful face at the three chairs on which he had condemned himself to pass the night So do I he said gravely CHAPTER XVII Nothing happened in the night and I am happy to add no attempt at communication between Miss Rachel and Rosanna rewar...
Restoration, not revolution
The program promises to "restore, not destroy" and to deal with the economy as it is, not as if writing on "a clean sheet of paper." That claim invites comparison with older republican cautions about federal power and with what Wilson's first term actually enacted.
Related across the library
- Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius, Lesson: Conflict that preserves liberty
  Conflict that preserves liberty. Machiavelli argues in Book I, ch. IV, that the quarrels between the Roman nobles and commons, which others blamed for disorder, produced the laws that kept Rome free. A republic, on this view, needs institutions that give each side a lawful outlet.
- Decretum (Concord of Discordant Canons), Lesson: Reconciling authorities
  Reconciling authorities. Gratian took contradictory texts seriously and sought distinctions that showed how they fit together. Careful reasoning can find harmony where others see only conflict.
- Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death, Lesson: Facing a painful truth
  Facing a painful truth. Henry's first target is not Britain but wishful thinking. He compares hope that ignores evidence to a siren's song and insists on knowing the worst in order to provide for it. The speech treats clear sight about danger as a moral duty, not merely a tactical advantage.
- First Oration Against Catiline, First Oration Against Catiline
  duty to the republic if we keep out of the way of his frenzied attacks You ought O Catiline long ago to have been led to execution by command of the consul That destruction which you have been long plotting against us ought to have already fallen on your own head What Did not that most illustrious man Publius Scipio the Pontifex Maximus in his capacity of a private citizen put to death Tiberius Gracchus though but slightly undermining the constitution And shall we who are the consuls tolerate Catiline openly des...
- Richard II, Lesson: Eloquence is not the same as rule
  Eloquence is not the same as rule. Richard speaks the play's most beautiful poetry, while Bolingbroke says little and acts steadily. Richard's images of sun, balm and angels tend to replace action rather than direct it, and his finest lines come when there is nothing left to do. The play asks students to admire his language and also to notice what it costs a kingdom when a ruler prefers performance to governance.