Even before the November 11, , armistice, however, differences over America's role in the postwar world began to emerge as Republican demands for Germany's unconditional surrender contrasted sharply with Wilson's idealistic vision of a "peace without victory. Wilson's usual reluctance to consult the Senate became even more pronounced once the Republicans were in the majority after Wilson departed for the January Versailles peace conference without seeking the advice of senators from either party; once there, he insisted that his proposals for a League of Nations be incorporated into the peace settlement.
He returned to the United States in February to report on the progress at Versailles, cabling ahead to invite the members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to a working dinner at the White House to discuss the treaty provisions relating to the League of Nations. Lodge honored the president's request that the committee refrain from public comment on the matter and was outraged to learn that Wilson intended to deliver a public address in Boston to muster public support for the League immediately upon his arrival.
On February 28, , two days after Lodge visited the White House, where he and the other committee members sat through a two-hour question and answer session that "told us nothing," he rose in the Senate to deliver the opening salvo in what would prove to be a protracted and bitter contest over the League of Nations and the shape of the postwar world. Animated by the conviction that he would "follow no man and vote for no measures which, however well intended, seem in my best judgement to lead to dissensions rather than to harmony among the nations or to injury, peril, or injustice to my country," and his insistence that the Senate, "which is charged with responsibility.
He began with the impassioned argument that the document repudiated George Washington's September 17, , Farewell Address and the Monroe Doctrine, two sacred canons of American foreign policy.
Turning to the specific provisions of the proposed draft, Lodge argued that the provision guaranteeing the independence and territorial integrity of all members was particularly troubling. He warned that, to insure that guarantee, the United States "must be in possession of fleets and armies capable of enforcing them at a moment's notice.
He did, however, make sure the League of Nations was an inextricable part of the final agreement. He hoped that once the League was established, it could rectify the treaty's many shortcomings. Of the treaty's articles, the first twenty-six comprise the Covenant of the League of Nations.
This covenant describes the operational workings of the League. Article Ten obliges signatories to guarantee the political independence and territorial integrity of all member nations against outside aggression, and to consult together to oppose aggression when it occurs.
This became the critical point, and the one that ultimately prevented the treaty's ratification by the Senate.
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge led the opposition. Lodge and Wilson were bitter political foes, but they also had legitimate differences of views on the League and on the covenant's Tenth Article. Lodge believed that the League, under Article Ten, could require the United States to commit economic or military force to maintain the collective security of member nations.
Wilson did not share this interpretation of Article 10 - an article that Wilson had written himself. Wilson stated that the veto power enjoyed by the United States in the League Council could prevent any League sanction, but if a unanimous League voted sanctions, the vote amounted only to advice, in any case.
The United States would not be, therefore, legally bound to the League's dictates. Why is Lodge giving this speech? Lodge was trying to convince the President not to join the League of Nations as it would weaken the US by getting involved in the conflicts of Europe.
US senate- Republican senators raised objections to the league arguing it would interfere with US sovereignty and be a violation of the Monroe Doctrine. Henry Cabot Lodge thought that the treaty and constitution for the league of nations was ill written. He attached reservations, or amendments, to the treaty to this effect. Wilson, bedridden from a debilitating stroke, was unable to accept these changes. It was signed on June 28, , by the Allied and associated powers and by Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles and went into effect on January 10, The founders of the League of Nations were desperate to avoid a repetition of the horrors of the Great War.
The main aims of the organisation included disarmament, preventing war through collective security, settling disputes between countries through negotiation and diplomacy, and improving global welfare. International organization founded in to promote world peace but greatly weakened by the refusal of the United States to join.
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