The Treaty of Versailles Was Defeated in the U.s. Senate in 1919 and Again in 1920

Written past: Bill of Rights Found

By the terminate of this section, you will:

• Explain the causes and consequences of U.Southward. involvement in World War I

Suggested Sequencing

Utilise this Determination Bespeak at the end of Chapter 10 to allow students to explore the U.S. role in the conclusion of World State of war I.

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From 1914 to 1917, the president and Congress debated America's opinion toward the war in Europe. In one case the United States had been drawn into the conflict in April 1917, their attention turned to debating how best to execute the state of war and to shape the peace to come up after the successful conclusion to the conflict. Guided by progressive ideals, President Woodrow Wilson's vision was to create a new world club as part of the Treaty of Versailles, in which a league of nations would ensure that this, indeed, was "the war to end all wars." During the treaty ratification process, Wilson had to determine whether he would fight for this goal without compromising or whether he would work with the Senate to get almost of what he wanted.

Wilson'southward idealistic vision was challenged in Congress past Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts. Lodge had opposed Wilson'south neutrality policy during the war and opposed the Treaty of Versailles afterward the war. During the peacemaking process, the bourgeois Lodge was chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and led the fight against the ratification of the Wilson peace program, which he viewed equally unconstitutional and threatening to American national sovereignty and traditional foreign policy principles. Gild had to decide whether to obstruct the ratification of the treaty or detect areas of compromise with the president.

Massachusetts Senator Henry Cabot Gild, pictured here in 1916, led the group in Congress whose members opposed President Wilson's peace program.

The outbreak of state of war in Baronial 1914 had prompted President Wilson to urge Americans to exist "impartial in thought as well equally in action." Gild thought neutrality was unsound and impractical and wanted to back up the Allied powers. In May 1915, a German U-boat (submarine) sank the passenger linerLusitania, killing 1,200 people, including 128 Americans. Wilson asserted that Americans were "too proud to fight" and instead pursued peace for the skillful of the world. Lodge and his friend Theodore Roosevelt thought the president'south response was feeble idealism inappropriate to the tragedy.

In 1916, Wilson spoke at a meeting of the League to Enforce the Peace. In that speech, he articulated a vision of an association of nations that would keep the peace and end warfare. An international torso of nations would end assailment rather than relying on the existing balance-of-power affairs and system of alliances among sovereign nations. Wilson's ideas culminated in his "peace without victory" oral communication of January 22, 1917, in which he promoted "the time to come security of the world against wars." The new world order was to be rooted in a community of power to accomplish peace.

Only a week later, Frg announced it would unleash unrestricted U-gunkhole warfare, gambling that it could starve Neat Britain and the Allies into submission before the United states entered the conflict. On April 2, the president went to Congress and asked for a declaration of state of war. Wilson said the United States must "brand the world prophylactic for commonwealth" by destroying autocracy in Europe and vindicating "the principles of peace and justice" in the world. Congress obliged past declaring war a few days after.

The American Expeditionary Forces were made upwardly of approximately two million troops and helped support the war-weary English and French troops when the U.s.a. entered Earth State of war I. Pictured are officers of the AEF c. 1918.

As American troops fought in Europe, Wilson worked out his vision of a just and peaceful postwar order. In January 1918, he delivered his Fourteen Points voice communication, in which he argued for freedom of the seas, a reduction in artillery, and national self-conclusion of ethnic minorities. Most important, Wilson developed his idea of a league of nations. The covenant, or understanding, of the League was the "central to the whole settlement," equally he saw it.

Wilson fabricated several blunders preparing for the peace conference in Versailles. During the 1918 midterm congressional elections, he had made blatantly partisan appeals, stating that Republican dissent with administration policies was unpatriotic. Republicans then won control of both houses of Congress, making Club the Senate'southward majority leader and the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Commission, which considered the peace treaty. Wilson fabricated additional missteps by not inviting any Republicans or senators onto the Versailles peace briefing delegation and not consulting with Lodge before he left for Paris. Yet he needed the back up of ii-thirds of the Senate for the peace treaty to be ratified.

Wilson had a sense of providential destiny nearly his vision for the League of Nations and his own leadership. Against the recommendations of his advisors, he decided to be the start president to travel overseas to negotiate a peace treaty, because he believed no one else could achieve his goals. When he arrived in Europe in December 1918, millions celebrated him in Paris, London, and Rome, which fed his vanity and sense of moral purpose.

The president briefly returned to the Usa in February 1919. On the evening of February 26, Senator Lodge and other members of the Foreign Relations Commission attended a dinner at the White House. Lodge sabbatum impassively while the president spoke nearly a league of nations to keep the peace. Then he asked Wilson a serial of questions. The answers confirmed Order'south fear that Article X of the Treaty of Versailles would commit the United states to a state of war against an aggressor nation that attacked another nation, thus bypassing the constitutional requirement that Congress retain the power to declare state of war.

Lodge believed in this ramble principle and opposed committing U.S. troops to conflicts around the globe based on the vote of an international torso. He and other senators also feared that the League would supersede the Monroe Doctrine, which had asserted American preeminence in the western hemisphere for a century. Wilson was adamant that "you cannot dissect the Covenant from the treaty without destroying the whole vital structure."

On the evening of March 2, Order worked at his home with ii other senators to draft a Senate resolution expressing their opposition to the League of Nations. 30-9 Republicans signed it, and even some Democrats supported the measure. About a dozen senators were "irreconcilables," who refused to support the treaty regardless of a compromise, and forty were "reservationists" who were willing to ratify if Wilson compromised on Commodity Ten.

The Senate Strange Relations Committee, pictured here in 1919, was led by Henry Cabot Lodge (fifth from the left) and worked to garner support from fellow senators to block Wilson'south peace programme.

On March 3, Lodge delivered an important spoken communication opposing the League of Nations. He criticized Article X for violating the United States' national sovereignty and Congress's prerogative to declare war, and he cited the danger that Americans would be forced to send their immature men overseas to end assaulter nations. He stated, "I want to continue America equally she has been—not isolated, not forestall her from joining other nations for these great purposes—just I wish her to be principal of her fate." In the Senate, Lodge packed the Strange Relations Committee with handpicked opponents of the League of Nations.

When President Wilson returned to the United States that summer, he broke with precedent and on July 10 presented the treaty to the Senate in person while addressing the trunk. As he walked into the chamber with the beefy treaty under his arm, Lodge jokingly asked, "Mr. President, can I conduct the treaty for you?" Wilson retorted, "Not on your life." In his oral communication, President Wilson asked the Senate rhetorically, "Dare we reject it and suspension the center of the earth?"

During committee hearings in Baronial, Lodge repeated his business organisation that Article 10 violated the principles of the Constitution. He asserted that no American soldier or sailor could be sent overseas to fight a war "except by the constitutional authorities of the United States." In improver, Lodge worried that membership in the League of Nations would bind the Usa to fight in wars around the world. He idea the primary goal of American foreign policy was to protect American national interests. He said, "Our first ideal is our land. . . We would non have our land'due south vigor exhausted or her moral force abated, by everlasting meddling and muddling in every quarrel, slap-up and small which affects the world."

In September, Wilson further provoked Lodge and other opponents by taking the case for the League of Nations directly to the American people. His speaking bout was consistent with his view of American politics, in which congressional government was messy and the separation of powers an outdated principle. Instead, a potent president needed to act as a national leader who guided the nation in correct principles through rhetoric. Large crowds applauded his message that the League was the "crusade of mankind," merely the bout was soon cut short when the president suffered a debilitating stroke on October 2, which incapacitated him for months. From his sickbed, he refused whatsoever compromise considering removing Article 10 "cuts the very heart out of the treaty."

Early in the forenoon of November 19, 1919, spectators flooded the Senate gallery, jockeying for a good vantage betoken to view the historic fence and the vote on the treaty. Members of the printing were in that location to report the outcome for their newspapers. The 68-twelvemonth-former Senator Social club captivated near people's attending.

This political drawing, created past John T. McCutcheon in 1918, depicts the U.S. Senate objecting to a wedlock betwixt the United States and its "foreign entanglement" bride via the League of Nations. (credit: The Ohio State University, Billy Ireland Drawing Library and Museum)

The senators debated the treaty during a x-hr marathon, hearing from all sides, and and so prepared to vote. Prodded past Wilson, who told them not to compromise, they rejected the treaty with reservations by a vote of 55–39. A vote was and so taken on the treaty without reservations, equally the Wilson administration wanted. It was also defeated, past a virtually identical vote of 53–38. Several Democrats begged Wilson to compromise, but he refused. The president deluded himself that he could "bring this state to a sense of its groovy opportunity and greater responsibility" if only his health improved. When the treaty came up for another vote in mid-November, Wilson obstinately said, "Let Lodge compromise. Let Lodge hold out the olive co-operative." The treaty was voted down again, and and so for a terminal fourth dimension on March 19, 1920.

Throughout the argue over the Treaty of Versailles and the League of Nations, President Wilson and Senator Order rooted their positions in very different visions of American affairs. Wilson idea the only mode to achieve a lasting peace and new world society was a league of nations. Guild wanted to preserve American national sovereignty and protect American national interests. This argue between idealism and realism continued to define the course of American foreign relations during the twentieth century.

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Review Questions

1. Woodrow Wilson'due south plans for the postwar peace was most strongly challenged past

1. Henry Cabot Lodge, head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
2. Theodore Roosevelt, sometime president of the United States
3. the United States House of Representatives
4. supporters of the League of Nations

2. For President Woodrow Wilson, the "hereafter security of the world against wars" most likely centered on

1. restoration of a residuum of ability between French republic and Germany
2. creation of a new globe order based on a community of nations
3. dominance of the U.s.a. in European politics
4. retreat from American interventionism and internationalism

3. President Woodrow Wilson's Xiv Points included all the following except

1. self-determination for ethnic minorities
2. freedom of the seas
3. a league of nations
4. promotion of European autocracy

4. A major misstep in President Wilson's promotion of his peace plan after Globe War I was his

1. failing to invite whatsoever Republicans or members of the Senate to the Versailles Peace Conference
2. publicly outlining his 14 Points peace plan
3. asking Congress for a annunciation of war in 1917
4. travelling overseas to attend the Versailles Peace Briefing

5. The principal objection of the U.S. Senate to the Treaty of Versailles was

1. the war reparations clause demanded by the European allies
2. the war guilt clause aimed at Deutschland
3. the self-determination proposal for ethnic minorities
4. Commodity X of the League Covenant calling for collective security

6. Ultimately, the U.S. Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, stating that it violated

1. the Senate'due south constitutional ability to negotiate treaties
2. the President's constitutional ability to declare war
3. national sovereignty
4. a Supreme Court conclusion

vii. Senate ratification of the Treaty of Versailles required President Wilson to proceeds the back up of

1. the "irreconcilables"
2. the isolationists
3. the internationalists
4. the reservationists

Free Response Questions

1. Compare President Woodrow Wilson's and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge's foreign policy goals at the cease of Globe War I.
2. Analyze the reasons the U.S. Senate ultimately refused to ratify the Treaty of Versailles.

AP Practice Questions

"Resolved (two-thirds of the senators nowadays concurring therein), that the Senate propose and consent to the ratification of the treaty of peace with Federal republic of germany concluded at Versailles on the 28th day of June, 1919, discipline to the post-obit reservations and understandings . . .

one. . . . The United States shall be the sole gauge every bit to whether all Its international obligations and all its obligations under the said Covenant take been fulfilled . . .

2. The U.s. assumes no obligation to preserve the territorial integrity or political independence of any other country or to interfere in controversies between nations . . .

4. The United States reserves to itself exclusively the right to make up one's mind what questions are within its domestic jurisdiction . . .

9. The United States shall non exist obligated to contribute to any expenses of the League . . . unless and until an appropriation of funds . . . shall accept been made by the Congress of the The states."

Henry Cabot Lodge, "Reservations with Regard to the Versailles Treaty," November 19, 1919

Refer to the excerpt provided.

i. The position outlined in the extract is most consistent with

1. the bulletin of Washington'southward Adieu Address
2. the establishment of the Monroe Doctrine
3. the Us' entry into the Spanish-American War
4. the treaty catastrophe the state of war with Mexico

ii. What was a direct upshot of the trend evident in the excerpt?

1. An stop to Progressive economic reforms
2. Growing support for American isolationism in the 1920s
3. Ratification of the women's suffrage subpoena
4. The United States taking the atomic number 82 in the League of Nations

3. Which of the post-obit statements best supports the position outlined in the excerpt?

1. Changing globe conditions necessitated American internationalism.
2. States' rights did not extend to international relations.
3. The U.S. Constitution established a system of checks and balances.
4. Direct ballot of U.S. senators freed the Senate from the influence of special interests.

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Primary Sources

Lodge, Henry Cabot. "Constitution of the League of Nations." February 28, 1919. https://world wide web.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/LodgeLeagueofNations.pdf

Wilson, Woodrow. "Joint Accost to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War Against Germany." Apr 2, 1917. https://world wide web.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=imitation&md=61&page=transcript

Wilson, Woodrow. "Peace Without Victory." Jan 22, 1917. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=3898

Wilson, Woodrow. "President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points." January 8, 1918. https://avalon.police.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp

Suggested Resources

Berg, A. Scott.Wilson. New York: Thou.P. Putnam's Sons, 2013.

Cooper, John Milton Jr.Breaking the Heart of the Earth: Woodrow Wilson and the Fight for the League of Nations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Academy Press, 2001.

Cooper, John Milton Jr.The Warrior and the Priest: Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Printing, 1985.

Cooper, John Milton Jr.Woodrow Wilson: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 2009.

O'Toole, Patricia.The Moralist: Woodrow Wilson and the Globe He Made. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2018.

Widenor, William C.Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy. Berkeley, CA: University of California Printing, 1980.

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Source: https://billofrightsinstitute.org/essays/the-treaty-of-versailles

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