the moral courage to face unpopularity and that when he saw his work was finished he retired from political life like another Cincinnatus.
Wilson paid a great deal of attention to the life and work of President Lincoln, and wrote a fine essay on him; he regarded him as the model American and the fine flower of the American people. Lincoln’s conceptions of American democracy attracted him throughout the whole of his political career Wilson put into operation the democratic ideas of this great predecessor. The above gives in concise form the ideological basis of Wilson’s personality.
Were these ideas and studies of Wilson of a chance nature or do they show his conscious direction of thought? Did he thus seek out his models and soul affinities with the intention of preparing himself for a great work? It is difficult to say, but history already shows us that these three men had much in common, and this owing to three events of world importance: George Washington waged war for the freeing of America from old World, from England; Abraham Lincoln waged war for the unity United States and their future greatness when he accepted the struggle of the North against the South; Thomas Woodrow Wilson brought America back to Europe and waged war for the leading role of the United States in world politics and for world peace. Those are the three chief stages of the history of the United States of North America. That is what history will say.
Wilson provides us with a full picture of his personality in his writings: he had great intellectual power and a highly-gifted logical and deductive mind. According to the majority of critics he lacked the intuitive power which characterizes men of the highest genius, but on the other hand by his intellectual capacity he ranks amongst the greatest Americans who have ever lived. He was deeply humanitarian and possessed real religious feeling: humanity was a reality which he consistently lived out in his own life.
Owing to the stress which he consistently laid on the power of reason, he called forth opposition in many quarters: he was lacking in sentimental qualities. His belief in the predominating value of reason together with his ideas regarding the principle of the State and governmental authority and regarding the task of the President who in accordance with the American Constitution holds enormous powers in his hands—all this caused him to be reproached with having political faults: his deciding to go in person to the Peace Conference in order to defend his ideas there and his method of fighting for the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, matters which brought about his truly tragical political fall.
As a thinker he was simple, direct and consistent, and having once recognised anything as true he would obstinately stick to his belief, looking neither to the right nor to the
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