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In March 1919, President Wilson asked Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer for his opinion on clemency, offering his own: "I doubt the wisdom and public effect of such an action." The President and his Attorney General both believed that public opinion opposed clemency and that releasing Debs could strengthen Wilson's opponents in the debate over the ratification of the peace treaty. Palmer proposed clemency in August and October 1920 without success.

At one point, Wilson wrote: "While the flower of American youth was pouring out its blood to vindicate the cause of civilization, this man, Debs, stood behind the lines sniping, attacking, and denouncing them. ... This man was a traitor to his country and he will never be pardoned during my administration." In January 1921, Palmer, citing Debs's deteriorating health, proposed to Wilson that Debs receive a presidential pardon freeing him on February 12, Lincoln's birthday. Wilson returned the paperwork after writing "Denied" across it.

Later, President Warren G. Harding's Socialist opponent in the 1920 election, Eugene Debs, was serving a ten-year sentence in the Atlanta Penitentiary for speaking against the war. Wilson had refused to pardon him before leaving office. Daugherty (his attorney general, Harry Daugherty) met with Debs, and was deeply impressed.

In March 1921, soon after the inauguration of President Warren G. Harding, Debs met Harding's Attorney General Harry Daugherty, but was returned to jail afterwards. At Harding's request, Debs visited the president at the White House before going home to Indiana. When Debs was released from the Atlanta Penitentiary, the other prisoners sent him off with "a roar of cheers" and a crowd of fifty thousand greeted his return to Terre Haute to the accompaniment of band music.

En route home, Debs was warmly received at the White House by President Harding, who greeted him by saying: "Well, I've heard so damned much about you, Mr. Debs, that I am now glad to meet you personally."