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In foreign policy Wilson faced greater challenges than any president since Abraham Lincoln. Determining whether to involve the US in World War I tested his leadership severely.
He kept the United States neutral in the early years of World War I, which contributed to his popular re-election in 1916. However, with increased pressure, the United States entered the conflict with a formal declaration of war against Germany on Friday, April 6, 1917.
After the Great War, Wilson worked with mixed success to assure statehood for formerly oppressed nations and an equitable peace. On Tuesday, January 8, 1918, Wilson made his famous " Fourteen Points" address, introducing the idea of a League of Nations, an organization that would strive to help preserve territorial integrity and political independence among large and small nations alike.
Wilson intended the Fourteen Points as a means toward ending the war and achieving an equitable peace for all the nations. He worked tirelessly to promote his plan at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. The charter of the proposed League of Nations was incorporated into the conference's Treaty of Versailles, but most of the other Fourteen Points fell by the wayside.
For his peacemaking efforts, Wilson was awarded the 1919 Nobel Peace Prize. Receiving the award was bittersweet, however, because he was unable to convince congressional opponents, such as Henry Cabot Lodge, to support the resolution endorsing US entry into the league. United States membership, Wilson believed, was essential to ensuring lasting world peace.
On Thursday, September 25, 1919, Wilson suffered a mild stroke that went unannounced to the public. A week later, on Thursday, October 2, Wilson suffered a second, far more serious stroke that nearly totally incapacitated him. Although the extent of his disability was kept from the public until after his death, Wilson was purposely kept out of the presence of Vice-President Thomas R. Marshall, his cabinet or Congressional visitors to the White House for the remainder of his presidential term.
While Wilson was incapacitated, Wilson's second wife, Edith Bolling Galt Wilson, served as steward, selecting issues for his attention and delegating other issues to his cabinet heads. This was to date the most serious case of presidential disability in American history, and was cited as a key example why ratification of the 25th amendment was seen as important. The amendment, which provides for installation of the Vice President as Acting President in case of presidential disability, was ratified in 1967.
Despite his disability, he did not run for the presidency in 1920 because he had been elected twice. He was the last president to follow the two-term tradition set by George Washington, because the next president to be elected to two terms, FDR, broke it, by being elected to four terms.
In 1921, Wilson and his second wife retired from the White House to a home in the Embassy Row section of Washington, DC. Wilson died there on Sunday, February 3, 1924. Mrs Wilson stayed in the home another 37 years, dying on Thursday, December 28, 1961.
| OFFICE | NAME | TERM |
| President | Woodrow Wilson | 1913–1921 |
| Vice President | Thomas R. Marshall | 1913–1921 |
| Secretary of State | William J. Bryan | 1913–1915 |
| Robert Lansing | 1915–1920 | |
| Bainbridge Colby | 1920–1921 | |
| Secretary of the Treasury | William G. McAdoo | 1913–1918 |
| Carter Glass | 1918–1920 | |
| David F. Houston | 1920–1921 | |
| Secretary of War | Lindley M. Garrison | 1913–1916 |
| Newton D. Baker | 1916–1921 | |
| Attorney General | James C. McReynolds | 1913–1914 |
| Thomas W. Gregory | 1914–1919 | |
| A. Mitchell Palmer | 1919–1921 | |
| Postmaster General | Albert S. Burleson | 1913–1921 |
| Secretary of the Navy | Josephus Daniels | 1913–1921 |
| Secretary of the Interior | Franklin K. Lane | 1913–1920 |
| John B. Payne | 1920–1921 | |
| Secretary of Agriculture | David F. Houston | 1913–1920 |
| Edwin T. Meredith | 1920–1921 | |
| Secretary of Commerce | William C. Redfield | 1913–1919 |
| Joshua W. Alexander | 1919–1921 | |
| Secretary of Labor | William B. Wilson | 1913–1921 |
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