Essay Read by Constituting America Founder, Actress Janine Turner
The debate in the U.S. Senate on whether to join the League of Nations, part of the Treaty of Versailles, negotiated and championed by President Woodrow Wilson, is a famous example of a Senate rejecting a treaty negotiated by a president. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who coordinated Senate opposition to the League of Nations, opposed the idea of an unbounded commitment to defend other nations, tying future Congress’s hands. The debate raised issues of constitutional self-government, national honor, and the nature of international relations.
Through the League of Nations, Wilson pursued his vision of a world in which international politics was not based on force but diplomacy. Lodge and others were not entirely opposed to the treaty which aimed at securing a more peaceful world, but they thought peace required preparation for war and the capacity to credibly threaten it.
Article X of the Versailles Treaty was a sticking point. It read: “The Members of the League [of Nations] undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.” Article X was open to the interpretation that the League of Nations would direct member states as to how to respond in case of aggression against member states.
Lodge was the Republican Senate Majority Leader with a 49-47 majority. Opposition to the League was more prevalent among Republicans but crossed party lines. The so-called Irreconcilables were implacably opposed. Strong Reservationists wanted to drop Article X of the Treaty of Versailles altogether, but the Mild Reservationists sought to add an interpretive reservation to the treaty stressing that Congress would retain authority to determine American obligations and military actions.
Lodge argued that agreeing to obligations the nation would not keep when push came to shove would undermine peace and stain the national honor. He noted that accepting unbounded obligations to nations around the world was a departure from George Washington’s foreign policy wisdom, expressed in his counsel to avoid “permanent alliances” as much as possible in his “Farewell Address.” Lodge argued that Article X of the Treaty of Versailles required the American people to yield a core feature of self-government: the prerogative to determine, through duly elected representatives, how their nation would use military force. He questioned the wisdom of an open-ended commitment:
Lodge said, “The ranks of the armies and the fleets of the navy made necessary by such pledges are to be filled and manned by the sons, husbands, and brothers of the people of America. I wish them carefully to consider, therefore whether they are willing to have the youth of America ordered to war by other nations without regard to what they or their representatives desire. I would have them determine after much reflection whether they are willing to have the United States forced into war by other nations against her own will. I hope they will take time to consider this promise before they make it—because when it is once made it cannot be broken—and ask themselves whether that is the best way of assuring perfect peace throughout the future years.”
Lodge and the reservationists put the Treaty of Versailles, including its provision for Article X, to a vote. They added a reservation clarifying that Congress retained the sole authority to declare war. Wilson, though he expressed some agreement with them about Congress’s authority to declare war, urged Democrats to vote against the treaty. He did so because he opposed any reservations and demanded the Senate ratify the treaty as it was without changes. Almost all the Democrats followed his wishes and voted against the treaty. Thus, the treaty’s most implacable opponents, and even its most stalwart supporters, collaborated in preventing the U.S. from becoming a party to it.
While the U.S. did not join the League of Nations, the country has since joined collective security institutions and treaties including the United Nations and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, along with a number of bilateral security treaties. Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty reads much like Article X of the Treaty of Versailles, and efforts to incorporate reservations failed.
Bilateral security treaties, such as between the U.S. and the Philippines, typically include clauses indicating that military commitments will be “in accordance with [each party’s] constitutional processes.” Even Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty preserves member nations’ prerogative to determine appropriate responses. So, such treaties and security commitments do not technically commit the U.S. to future military action, but has led to continued American debates on the wisdom of treaties with commitments for long-term security cooperation with international organizations.
Ben Peterson is an assistant professor in the Department of Government and Criminal Justice at Abilene Christian University. He writes on a range of public policy issues, drawing from resources in Christian social and political theory, the broader Western tradition of political thought, and contemporary social science. You can find links to his other writings and information about his scholarship on his website.
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Ben Peterson is an assistant professor of political science at Abilene Christian University.