U.S. Senate vote on the Treaty of Versailles

Senate and the Treaty of Versailles

On July 10, 1919, President Woodrow Wilson submitted the Treaty of Versailles to the United States Senate for ratification. Eight months had passed since the signing of the Armistice which ended World War I and the nation quickly turned from the excitement of the war to more important problems associated with keeping the peace. Most senators were already committed on the question of the League of Nations, but a number of them were unalterably opposed to American membership in the League. Some Democrats, however, stood firmly behind Wilson and some Republicans would vote for entry into the League only if amendments or reservations were attached as a condition of membership. But Wilson, thinking that a majority of Americans supported him, rejected all suggestions of compromise.

Partisanship obviously stood in the way, due in part to Henry Cabot Lodge, the leader of the Republicans, who had been an outspoken champion of nationalism long before the "Great War" had even begun in 1914. Lodge and other foes of the League indicated to Wilson that they would agree to membership only if the sovereignty of the U.S. was protected; Lodge also charged that the League and the Treaty of Versailles was a tool of British interests, that it endangered American independence and was an organization run by liberal idealists.

The most controversial portion of the Treaty of Versailles, also known as the League Covenant, was Article X which pledged the member nations to preserve the territorial integrity and the existing political independence of any member state threatened by external aggression. Wilson described Article X as the heart of the Covenant, for the power of the treaty to enforce peace depended upon it. Foes in the senate argued that Article X would impair the sovereignty of the U.S. By committing the nation to use its armed forces to protect the existing boundaries of all members of the League.

On November 19, 1919, the U.S. Senate, after much action on the part of the President via speaking tours, voted on the treaty. The Committee on Foreign Relations, headed by Lodge, proposed forty-five amendments and a number of reservations. The senate, however, rejected all of the amendments but approved one reservation that the U.S. assume no obligation to use its armed forces in the service of the League unless the action was approved by a joint resolution of Congress. A Republican motion to ratify with reservations was defeated by a vote of 39 to 55 with most Democrats voting in the negative; also, a Democratic resolution to ratify failed by a vote of 38 to 53.