![]() We are, let me say again, the sincere friends of the German people, and shall desire nothing so much as the early reestablishment of intimate relations of mutual advantage between us-however hard it may be for them, for the time being, to believe that this is spoken from our hearts.ġ1It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them.ĩJust because we fight without rancor and without selfish object, seeking nothing for ourselves but what we shall wish to share with all free peoples, we shall, I feel confident, conduct our operations as belligerents without passion and ourselves observe with proud punctilio the principles of right and of fair play we profess to be fighting for.ġ0It will be all the easier for us to conduct ourselves as belligerents in a high spirit of right and fairness because we act without animus, not in enmity toward a people or with the desire to bring any injury or disadvantage upon them, but only in armed opposition to an irresponsible government which has thrown aside all considerations of humanity and of right and is running amuck. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We are at the beginning of an age 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.ħ… We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience.ĨThe world must be made safe for democracy. ![]() We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. …ĦOur object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up among the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.ĤWith a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German government to be in fact nothing less than war against the government and people of the United States that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it and that it take immediate steps, not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.ĥWhile we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world, what our motives and our objects are. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. The challenge is to all mankind.ģEach nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken in ways which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. In this speech before Congress, President Woodrow Wilson made the case for America’s entry into World War I.ġI have called the Congress into extraordinary session because there are serious, very serious, choices of policy to be made, and made immediately …ĢThe present German submarine warfare against commerce is a warfare against mankind. ![]() Woodrow Wilson Requests War (April 2, 1917) ![]()
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