Jack's AP American Blog

I believe that these points are far too idealistic. Many of his points have not occurred yet at all, much less just in the treaty of Versailles. His points calling for public diplomacy, reducing of all armaments, the destruction of colonies, the return of Alsace-Loraine to the German people are all overextending his power, and ridiculous demands for other nations. Public diplomacy would be impossible to enforce, and would hurt nations because their enemies would know all their policies. Reducing armaments is also ridiculous because if one nation denies it (Germany) then it puts all other nations at risk. The destruction of colonies is not Wilson's decision to make because America did not have any colonies so this would severely damage European nations, while leaving America relatively unscathed. However, the most ridiculous of these claims was the return of Alsace-Loraine to the German people. This territory was both France's and Germany's main  territorial goal of WW1, and...

The Schenk V. United States case discusses the time where Charles Schenk and Elizabeth Baer distributed pamphlets advocating US citizens to dodge the draft for world war one. Schenk argued that the draft violated the thirteenth amendment which disallows involuntary servitude (side-note: this is referring to servitude as in servants and slavery not military service).  The court then indicted them in violation of the Espionage Act of 1917 for just saying this. The court's grounds were that they attempted to cause insubordination in the military and obstruct recruitment. Obviously, Schenk did not agree with this ruling, so he entered the appeals process. He appealed on the grounds that the courts were violating his first amendment right by suppressing his message. The courts, however, denied this appeal. They stated that it was an "appropriate exercise of congress' wartime authority". It was deemed that by disrupting US war efforts Schenk posed a "clear and present...