II.

Early Life

Wilson was born to religious and well-educated people, mainly of Scottish background. His grandparents on both sides emigrated to America in the 19th century and settled in Ohio. Wilson's father, Joseph Ruggles Wilson, studied for the clergy at the Presbyterian-directed College of New Jersey, now Princeton University. He married Janet Woodrow, and early in the 1850s the Wilsons moved to Virginia, where Joseph Wilson taught at Hampden-Sydney College. In 1855 he became the minister of a church in Staunton. His first son and third child, Thomas Woodrow, was born there on December 28, 1856.

A.

Civil War

When Woodrow was three years old the family moved to Augusta, Georgia. His early boyhood was happy but somewhat sheltered by the close family ties of the Wilsons. Wilson had a good singing voice and played the violin. When he had a family of his own, he carried on the tradition he had inherited of common prayer and sessions of music and song. The Civil War (1861-1865) was difficult for the Wilsons. Dr. Wilson was an ardent Confederate sympathizer, and young Wilson witnessed the ruthless behavior of federal troops who, under General William T. Sherman, invaded Georgia and South Carolina. Wilson believed all his life that the South had “absolutely nothing to apologize for,” so far as its secession from the Union was concerned. He believed further that the South's willingness to shed its blood “rather than pursue the weak course of expediency” had preserved its self-respect. Wilson remained a Southerner throughout his life.

B.

Early Education

Wilson was educated partly at home and partly at private schools in Augusta and, after 1870, in war-ravaged Columbia, South Carolina, to which the Wilsons moved. In 1874 they moved again, to Wilmington, North Carolina.

Like his father, young Wilson had great admiration for English letters and history. Also like his father, he held William Gladstone, the British Liberal prime minister, to be the greatest 19th-century statesman. The young Wilson took a moral and religious attitude toward society. His critical view of post-Civil War society as materialistic and ungracious agreed with that of such Southern poets as Henry Timrod and Sidney Lanier.

C.

College Years

In 1873, Wilson attended Davidson College, a small Presbyterian school in North Carolina, of which his father was a trustee. At that time there was some expectation that he might be preparing for the clergy, but the following year he enrolled at the College of New Jersey, a school favored by young Southern gentlemen.

Wilson worked less hard at achieving high grades than at deciding upon a career. He was seriously interested in English literature and read established authors. Politics also interested him, and he studied such classic British orators as Edmund Burke and the techniques of public speech. A leader among the school debaters Wilson, who believed in free trade, refused to defend the case for the government protection of domestic industry even as an exercise in argument. His dream of entering national politics was revealed in his visiting cards, which was written “Thomas Woodrow Wilson, senator from Virginia.”

Wilson worked diligently to improve his writing, examining the styles of famous English essayists and severely criticizing his own. During his last year at college he published an essay, “Cabinet Government in the United States,” in the International Review (August 1879). The essay revealed Wilson's gift for dramatizing ideas and giving them simple and urgent form. His criticism of the powerful committees that dominated the Congress of the United States was largely a criticism of the Congress that had dictated policy to the defeated Southern states during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War, but Wilson's essay went beyond sectional feelings. He wanted a more democratically run Congress, and he envisioned a government of strong and competent Cabinet members, actively engaged in the passage of legislation, rather than a strong president.

D.

Legal Career

Wilson was encouraged by the excellent reception of his essay and decided to become a lawyer and enter politics. As a student in the University of Virginia law school, however, he became inpatient with the fine points of law and only reluctantly mastered them. Although his work was outstanding, he found public speaking and political history more satisfying. Despite intermittent illness, he received his law degree and in 1882 settled in Atlanta, Georgia, where he opened a law practice with Edward I. Renick, another idealistic young Southerner. Neither of the young lawyers was particularly skilled at the business side of the venture. In 1883 Wilson abandoned his law career and entered the graduate school of The Johns Hopkins University to study history.