Woodrow Wilson: Address to Congress Leading to a Declaration of War against Germany

Questions for Further Study

• 1. Wilson thought the world was approaching an era “in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.” Can any nation ever act according to such criteria?
• 2. Wilson juxtaposed Germany's rulers to “the German people” whom he said were ignorant of how their nation entered the conflict. Is this picture of the peace-loving nature of any public accurate, then or today?
• 3. Wilson implied that World War I was “provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of the little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools.” Was this the reason for the outbreak of the conflict? Was he implying that the kaiser's regime alone prevented the triumph of international peace, order, and justice?
• 4. Wilson said, “A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations.” Can one assume that democracies always seek peace? Conversely, can one presume that nondemocratic states could never maintain such a peace?
• 5. Wilson claimed the United States was fighting for “a universal dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall bring peace and safety to all nations and make the world itself at last free.” Can such a goal ever possibly be attained? Can such a concert exist without the very alliance system the president spurned?
• 6. In the senatorial debate over the war resolution held on April 4, Republican Senator William E. Borah of Idaho remarked, “Suffice it to say now that there can, to my mind, be but one sufficient reason for committing this country to war, and that is the honor and security of our own people and our own Nation. … I join no crusade; I seek or accept no alliances” (U.S. Congress, p. 253). Should a nation ever fight for more abstract goals than those posited by Borah?