I don't hate President Wilson. He's not in my top ten when I rank USA presidents, but hate is a pretty strong word. He lacked the personal charisma that others had that allowed them to pull off unpopular moves.
Re Mikestone8, under the Constitution the President has absolutely no formal role in the constitutional amendment process. Its purely a function of Congress and the state governments. He can comment but doesn't have to and historically often hasn't. Otherwise the plot of Spielberg's movie "Lincoln" would be incomprehensible.
With normal legislation and the federal budget, in addition to the veto, Congress has ceded a good chunk of its powers to the executive branch over the years.
At times, Wilson generated the impression of being smugly confident in his moral and intellectual superiority. (1) When he pontificated to other leaders or didn't want to listen to other's opinions, it's not surprising that he wasn't liked. A good example of this sort of behavior is the way he antagonized the Senate over the League of Nations. (2)
Maybe people on this site have picked up on this character flaw.
Is Wilson hated that much in the USA? (5) In Europe, the general stance is largely that Wilson was one of the 'good guys', especially with regards to the notions of "making the world safe for democracy" and the "right of self-determination", both seen as being helpful for the short-lived democratization wave after the collapse of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. (6)
I don't hate President Wilson. He's not in my top ten when I rank USA presidents, but hate is a pretty strong word. He lacked the personal charisma that others had that allowed them to pull off unpopular moves.
The administrative state that he by and large put in place has allowed executive power to grow almost without any resistance for 100 years now.
The bureaucracy's explosive growth in the 20th century had its seeds sown with Wilson.
Oh, and the federal income tax. Fuck Wilson.
He also mishandled the aftermath of WW1, with his sparse application of his principles.
Letters to T.R. from Progressives and Democrats proposed an alliance with Bryan or Wilson, or the second spot on the ticket for one of them, if the progressive Democrats were defeated at Baltimore.
Had the authors of these missives consulted Bryan or Wilson about this remarkable idea - or even so much as met either of them? <g>.
Richard Hofstadter once wrote that while logically Bryan should have supported La Follette in 1924 as the presidential candidate closest to his old principles, he in fact he not only supported Davis but lent his brother Charles to the ticket, because "The Commoner could no more think of leaving the Democratic Party than of being converted to Buddhism." https://books.google.com/books?id=fVnnj0RmdhoC&pg=PA262
Wilson would be almost as unlikely--and yet, if it somehow an embittered Wilson could be induced to accept, it would be a real breakthrough in dealing with what was perhaps the Progressive Party's greatest problem--its limited appeal to Democrats. Until Wilson was actually nominated, TR seems to have been sympathetic to him; when supporters urged TR not to run and split the small-p progressive vote, TR replied that "I do not believe that it would be right for us, excellent man though Wilson is individually, to support him. It would mean restoring to power the Democratic bosses in Congress and in the several States..." http://tinyurl.com/z58pv6q
2) He was right about the League of Nations though.
4) It was only in 2010 in the decennial ranking that somebody finally realized that Grant was the best president on Civil Rights until Lyndon Baines Johnson! That all his work was destroyed wasn't his fault, but Rutherford B. Hayes'.
5) No. He's hated that much on AH.com and among history-knowledgeable African-Americans.
In which case, the more fool he for not swallowing enough of the Lodge Reservations to get it approved. Even OTL it came within seven votes of acceptance, so he could have done it with a bit more flexibility.
How do you work that out?
Nine of the eleven Confederate States (and all the Border States) had been "redeemed" before Hayes came into office. And iirc the order to withdraw troops from the two remaining ones had already been issued by Grant, though Hayes was in office by the time it was carried out.
Frankly, a U.S. alliance with France (and Britain) might have been more important than U.S. membership in the LoN. Indeed, interestingly enough, Lodge was actually open to such an alliance--and I can provide proof for this if necessary.
It's interesting that Congressional will to do something about Southern racism still existed as late as 1875, though; indeed, that's when the last 19th century Civil Rights Act was passed by the U.S. Congress (before getting struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1883, eight years later).