Woodrow Wilson

For Wilson and other Progressives at this time, the idea behind compulsory education was not to provide children with a well-rounded education but to make them wards of the state.

Clearly, Wilson did not want compulsory education to give all children an equal opportunity. He genuinely believed that children could be divided into elite and non-elite classes, and that their roles in society could be predetermined based on their class.

Shortly after the ratification of the 16th Amendment, President Woodrow Wilson signed the Revenue Act of 1913. It imposed a system of income tax that was the direct precursor to what we have in place today—a progressive tax system.

The passing of the 17th Amendment [under Wilson’s administration] was an important aspect of the goal of concentration of power, because it destroyed the balance of powers between the states, the people, and the federal gov’t that the Constitution had originally set out; and it prevented the states as states from blocking federal encroachments of their sovereignty.

While he was governor of New Jersey, Wilson signed legislation creating the Board of Examiners of Feebleminded, Epileptics, and Other Defectives. Under this law New Jersey had the power to determine when “procreation is inadvisable” for the “defectives” and others who were referred under the legislation.

Woodrow Wilson believed that the days of open competition were gone and that planned economies were the future.

Source: Theodore and Woodrow. How Two American Presidents Destroyed Constitutional Freedom. (2012) by Judge Andrew P. Napolitano.

In his book, History of the American People, Wilson depicted white European immigrants with empathy while African American immigrants and their children were regarded as unsuitable for citizenship and unable to assimilate positively into American society.

Wilson believed that slavery was wrong on economic labor grounds, rather than for moral reasons.

Wilson's segregationist stance as president should perhaps not have come as a surprise; while president of Princeton University, Wilson had discouraged blacks from even applying for admission, preferring to keep the peace among white students than have black students admitted.