Clarence Thomas Was Right: Woodrow Wilson Declared War on the Constitution
Thomas reminded the country that Wilson rejected the principle that all men are created equal. I spent months building the fuller case — and it’s even worse than that.
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We’ve Had Some Awful Presidents In Our History, But There Can Only Be One Who Takes the Title of Worst Of All Time…
For decades now, I have held a conviction that puts me at odds with much of conventional history: Woodrow Wilson was the worst president in our nation's history.
That view did not arrive overnight, and it is not the product of partisan reflex. It has been shaped over many years of reading scholarly works on Wilson, the Progressive movement, and the founding principles he set out to overturn, and it was sharpened considerably through my time as a Lincoln Fellow at the Claremont Institute, where the relationship between the Founders’ Constitution and the administrative state is taken seriously rather than waved away.
What I kept finding lacking, though, was something I could simply hand to people. Plenty of fine work exists, but much of it is long, academic, and written for specialists. I wanted a single piece that made the case clearly and forcefully, yet did so succinctly enough that a busy reader would actually finish it.
Recently, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered a major address in which he called out Wilson by name, reminding the country that he rejected the founding promise that all men are created equal and stood at the head of a movement the justice tied to some of the last century’s gravest evils. I will put it more bluntly than a sitting justice can: Wilson was a racist, and the machinery of arrogant, unaccountable power he built was evil in its consequences. Hearing Thomas say his part of it out loud was the push I needed to finally finish this.
After months of drafting, cutting, and reworking, and after having it reviewed by trusted peers and a Wilson scholar to ensure I was being fair even as I rendered a harsh verdict, I sent it out. I was humbled that the folks at American Greatness were excited to publish it, and it ran this morning. I hope you will give it a read.