![]() Incoming president Wilson (left) and outgoing president Taft (right) share a laugh at the White House before Wilson's inauguration | |
Date of election | November 12, 1912 |
---|---|
Inauguration date | March 4, 1913 |
President-elect | Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) |
Vice president-elect | Thomas R. Marshall (Democrat) |
Outgoing president | William Howard Taft (Republican) |
Outgoing vice president | None (office vacant since the death of James S. Sherman) |
| ||
---|---|---|
Transitions | ||
Planned transitions | ||
Related | ||
The presidential transition of Woodrow Wilson began when he won the United States 1912 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Wilson was inaugurated at noon EST on March 4, 1913.
At the time that Wilson's occurred, the term "presidential transition" had yet to be widely applied to the period between an individual's election as president of the United States and their assumption of the office. [1]
Shortly after winning the presidential election, Wilson boarded a ship to begin a month-long vacation in Bermuda. [2] At the time, it was common for president-elects to take weeks-long vacations following their election, as presidential transitions were longer than they have been more recently. The Twentieth Amendment to the United States Constitution would shorten transitions. Transitions were far less substantial in scale compared to the large operations of more recent presidential transitions. [3] Wilson arrived in Bermuda on November 18, and remained there until December 13. [4]
Wilson did not resign his office of governor of New Jersey until several days prior to assuming the presidency, and spent much of his transition conducting official gubernatorial business in Trenton, New Jersey. [3]
From mid-December through February, Wilson spent much of his time carrying out on his gubernatorial responsibilities and focusing on selecting appointees for his presidential administration's Cabinet. He also worked on developing policies for his presidential administration. [5]
From December 27 through 29, Wilson stayed in Staunton, Virginia, his birthplace, in order to attend a celebration of his birthday there. [6]
Wilson's Cabinet selection process was heavily concealed from both the public, and even most of the Democratic Party's politicians and operatives. Wilson did not announce any of his Cabinet choices prior to his inauguration. [5] This was not unusual for United States presidential transitions of the day, as, in preceding presidential transitions too, Cabinet selections would either go unannounced before the inauguration, or, otherwise, would only be announced shortly before the inauguration. [7]
Soon after the election, Wilson commented that he had been the recipient of many telegrams soliciting advice about his Cabinet. [8]
There was great pressure for Wilson to appoint three-time unsuccessful Democratic presidential nominee William Jennings Bryan to a position in his Cabinet. Bryan visited Wilson in Trenton on December 21, and an agreement was reached that he would serve as secretary of state. [9] Bryan would end up being the only member of Wilson's Cabinet to have their own independent national political base of support. [10]
It would take weeks for Wilson to settle on any additional Cabinet picks. However, his Cabinet was taking shape. By January 9, at least half the individuals he would ultimately place in his Cabinet were already under strong consideration. By the end of January, Wilson had made decisions on several Cabinet positions, but had not yet formally extended invitations to these selections. [11]
At the end of January, Wilson invited William Gibbs McAdoo to serve as his secretary of the treasury. [11]
By mid-February, Wilson chose Albert Sidney Burleson to serve as postmaster general, Josephus Daniels to serve as secretary of the navy, David F. Houston to serve as secretary of agriculture, and William Bauchop Wilson as secretary of labor. [11] Burleston and Daniels accepted their positions by letters on February 25. [10]
Wilson selected James Clark McReynolds for attorney general. He formally accepted the job by letter on February 25. [12] He selected William C. Redfield for secretary of commerce, offering him the job on February 26, and receiving his acceptance on February 28. [12]
In choosing his secretary of the interior, Wilson wished to choose someone that would avoid tough conservation policies, keeping in mind the Pinchot–Ballinger controversy of the Taft administration. [13] Wilson first invited Newton D. Baker to hold the position, but Baker declined, and Franklin Knight Lane was selected to hold the position. [13] Wilson then, in mid-February, decided he would prefer to have Lane instead serve as secretary of war, and have Walter Hines Page serve as secretary of the interior. [12] Wilson went as far as requesting a meeting with Baker to arrange this, but before the meeting was held, was convinced that Congress would not confirm a southerner as secretary of war, due to the Grand Army of the Republic's almost certain objection to a southerner holding a role that supervised the Bureau of Pensions. Wilson dropped this plan, and kept Lane as his choice for secretary of the interior. [10]
After dropping the plan to have Lane serve as secretary of war, Wilson offered the position of secretary of war to A. Mitchell Palmer, who declined the position, citing his Quaker faith. [10] With days left to his inauguration, Wilson accepted a suggestion by Joseph Patrick Tumulty, and chose Lindley Miller Garrison for the position. Garrison formally accepted the job by letter on February 25. [10]
Wilson had initially given serious contemplation to placing Louis Brandeis in his Cabinet, considering him for attorney general and later secretary of commerce, but dropped the idea due to Brandeis' liberalism having made him be seen as radical, causing him to be opposed by the Democratic Party leadership in Brandeis' own home state. [13]
On February 3, Wilson announced that Joseph Patrick Tumulty would serve as secretary to the president. This was the only announcement he made ahead of his inauguration about the staffing of his administration. [5]
After his election, many groups sought to brief Wilson on various positions and matters. [14]
During the transition, to learn more about the prospect of granting independence to the Philippines (which was, at the time, a United States territory), Wilson had Henry Jones Ford travel there on a secret fact-finding mission. [15] The Jones Law was under consideration at the time, which addressed the possibility of granting Philippine independence. [16]
During the transition, Wilson largely avoided taking stances on hot-button issues before the lame duck congress. [16] The norms at the time for presidential transitions had been that presidents-elect would generally stay away from Washington, D.C. until shortly before their inauguration, and would keep themselves busy with forming their cabinet and other work, avoiding making statements or taking actions that would weaken the ability of the outgoing president to conduct their job as president. [7]
An exception to Wilson staying removed from hot button issues took place when Wilson wrote a letter in late November that would be privately seen by many Democrats, but kept private from the public, which argued against the idea of creating a term limit on the presidency that would limit occupants to a single six-year term. On February 1, 1913, the Senate passed a resolution to that effect, by a vote of 47 to 23. [17] The idea of creating a single six-year presidential term had been discussed for many years, particularly by Democrats, and had been included in the official 1912 party platforms of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. Outgoing Republican president William Howard Taft, in his lame duck period, voiced continued support for the idea, and so did prominent Democrat William Jennings Bryan. Wilson's opposition may have helped to kill any action on moving to put in place an amendment that would create such a term-limit. [18]
Another instance where Wilson chimed in on a hot-button issue was his urging of Republican members of Congress to pass banking and currency reform. [19]
As the effective head of the Democratic Party, Wilson had some political obligations during his transition. A number of state legislatures selected their state's United States senators in January and February. With complicated three-way power splits in a number of state legislatures between Democrats, Republicans, and Progressives, in a number of states compromises had to be brokered in order to get the requisite consensus to elect senators. Democratic leaders in a number of states where Democrats lacked the power and leverage to push through a Democratic senate candidate sought Wilson's advice on whether or not they should broker deals with the Progressive Party in which they would support a Progressive Party candidate for United States Senate. Documents from the transition seem to indicate that Wilson generally gave only summary responses to their queries. [20]
The norm for previous presidential transitions at the time was that the incoming and outgoing administrations had generally had limited relations. There had been discussion between the incoming and outgoing administrations about matters related to the inauguration and the logistics of moving the new administration into the White House, but matters related to governing were generally not discussed in past transitions. [7]
On November 28, Taft extended a direct invitation Wilson and his wife Ellen Axson Wilson to visit the White House, offering to provide Wilson with information that would be useful to him. He also inquired whether Wilson had any interest in taking a trip to inspect the Panama Canal, similar to a trip that Taft was planning to make himself. [21] [22] On December 2, Wilson politely expressed disinterest in both offers. [21] [23] [24] [25] This correspondence, however, served as an icebreaker between the president and president-elect, and they continued to correspondence during the transition, discussing a number of matters. However, there correspondence was still rather limited. [26] Wilson was largely uninterested in consulting with Taft or principal members of the Taft administration. [27]
Despite Wilson's disinterest in consulting with the Taft administration. A number of officials in the Taft administration made efforts to reach out to Wilson, hoping to be able to establish communication and provide him with information on government matters, but these proved to be largely fruitless efforts. [27]
Even when there were crisis developments related to the Mexican Revolution in February, it does not appear that Wilson was interested in consulting with the Taft administration on the developments, and it appears that he did not address the crisis during the transition. [28] [29]
William Howard Taft was the 27th president of the United States, serving from 1909 to 1913, and the tenth chief justice of the United States, serving from 1921 to 1930, the only person to have held both offices. Taft was elected president in 1908, the chosen successor of Theodore Roosevelt, but was defeated for reelection in 1912 by Woodrow Wilson after Roosevelt split the Republican vote by running as a third-party candidate. In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed Taft to be chief justice, a position he held until a month before his death.
Thomas Woodrow Wilson was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of Princeton University and as the governor of New Jersey before winning the 1912 presidential election. As president, Wilson changed the nation's economic policies and led the United States into World War I in 1917. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his progressive stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism.
The 1912 United States presidential election was the 32nd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 5, 1912. Democratic Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey unseated incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft while defeating former President Theodore Roosevelt and Socialist Party nominee Eugene V. Debs.
James "Tama Jim" Wilson was an American politician who served as United States secretary of agriculture for sixteen years during three presidencies, from 1897 to 1913. He holds the record as the longest-serving United States Cabinet member.
William Gibbs McAdoo Jr. was an American lawyer and statesman. McAdoo was a leader of the Progressive movement and played a major role in the administration of his father-in-law President Woodrow Wilson. A member of the Democratic Party, he also represented California in the United States Senate.
Woodrow Wilson's tenure as the 28th president of the United States lasted from March 4, 1913, until March 4, 1921. He was largely incapacitated the last year and a half. He became president after winning the 1912 election. Wilson was a Democrat who previously served as governor of New Jersey. He gained a large majority in the electoral vote and a 42% plurality of the popular vote in a four-candidate field. Wilson was re-elected in 1916 by a narrow margin. Despite his New Jersey base, most Southern leaders worked with him as a fellow Southerner.
The presidency of William Howard Taft began on March 4, 1909, when William Howard Taft was inaugurated as 27th president of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1913. Taft was a Republican from Ohio. The protégé and chosen successor of President Theodore Roosevelt, he took office after easily defeating Democrat William Jennings Bryan in the 1908 presidential election. His presidency ended with his defeat in the 1912 election by Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
Christopher P. Lu is a Chinese American political advisor who serves as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations for Management and Reform. He is also an alternative representative to the United Nations General Assembly during his tenure as Representative for Management and Reform. In the Obama administration, Lu served as the United States Deputy Secretary of Labor from 2014 to 2017, the White House Cabinet Secretary and Assistant to the President from 2009 to 2013, and the co-chair of the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. Lu graduated from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and from Harvard Law School, where he was a classmate of Obama's.
The 1912 United States elections elected the members of the 63rd United States Congress, occurring during the Fourth Party System. Amidst a division between incumbent Republican President William Howard Taft and former Republican President Theodore Roosevelt, the Democratic Party won the presidency and both chambers of Congress, the first time they accomplished that feat since the 1892 elections.
The 1910 New Jersey gubernatorial election was held on November 8, 1910. Democratic nominee and future President Woodrow Wilson defeated Republican Assemblyman Vivian M. Lewis with 53.93% of the vote. During the campaign, Wilson underwent a political transformation from a symbol of conservative Wall Street reaction into one of the leading members of his party's progressive faction. His victory was widely understood to be the prelude to his campaign for the presidency in 1912.
The 1912 United States presidential election in Michigan took place on November 5, 1912, as part of the 1912 United States presidential election. Voters chose 15 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
Woodrow Wilson appointed three Associate Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States, James Clark McReynolds, Louis Brandeis, and John Hessin Clarke.
The 1916 United States presidential election in Michigan took place on November 7, 1916, as part of the 1916 United States presidential election. Voters chose 15 representatives, or electors, to the Electoral College, who voted for president and vice president.
The presidential transition of George H. W. Bush began when then-Vice President Bush won the United States 1988 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Bush was inaugurated on January 20, 1989.
The presidential transition of Jimmy Carter began when he won the 1976 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Carter was inaugurated on January 20, 1977. Carter had become president-elect once the election results became clear on November 3, 1976, the day after the election.
The presidential transition of Richard Nixon began when he won the 1968 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Nixon was inaugurated on January 20, 1969. Nixon had become president-elect once the election results became clear on November 6, 1968, the day after the election. This was the first presidential transition to take place following the passage of the Presidential Transition Act of 1963.
The presidential transition of John F. Kennedy began when he won the 1960 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect of the United States, and ended when Kennedy was inaugurated on January 20, 1961. Kennedy had become president-elect once the election results became clear on November 9, 1960, the day after the election.
The presidential transition of Dwight D. Eisenhower began when he won the United States 1952 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Eisenhower was inaugurated on January 20, 1953.
The presidential transition of Franklin D. Roosevelt began when he won the United States 1932 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect of the United States, and ended when Roosevelt was inaugurated at noon EST on March 4, 1933.
The presidential transition of Warren G. Harding began when he won the United States 1920 United States presidential election, becoming the president-elect, and ended when Harding was inaugurated at noon EST on March 4, 1921.