"Now, in the face of this situation, it will be idle for us to pass any resolution looking to the immediate establishment of peace that does not contemplate the unqualified acceptance of the treaty, if that resolution requires from the President the performance of any act or duty in order to secure peace, because if we do, he will, if the statements of his representatives are accepted, so delay or ignore that act or duty as to defeat the end and purpose of our action, for in his opinion wisdom lies only in following the behests of his will. Therefore, if the resolution is to be effective, it must be self-operative. Nothing necessary to the bringing of peace must be left for his accomplishment.
WHY UNITED STATES WENT TO WAR
"Our purposes, as stated by the President, were three-fold:
"First, the defeat and elimination of the Imperial German Government and Prussian autocracy;
"Next, the liberation from their yoke of despotism of the Germans themselves—for whom we had nothing but sympathy and friendship—to the end that they might be masters of their own fates and fortunes; and
"Lastly, the establishment, as sincere friends of the German people, of intimate relations of mutual advantage between them and us.
"In so far as my information goes, the German Government never declared war against the United States. They merely accepted the status which this declaration recognized and probably created; for it must be remembered that while we interpreted, and rightly so, that German submarine warfare, as directed against the United States, was illegal, constituting acts of war, the German Government never acquiesced in that view and, on the contrary, maintained the legality of all general measures taken.
"The Imperial German Government, against whom we declared war, did cease to exist at the time of the signing of the armistice, leaving us from thence on without any titular enemy against which to wage a war unless we were warring with the German people, and we have clearly estopped ourselves to make such a contention.
"Thus from this point of view also the armistice brought us not alone the end of hostilities, but the actual peace. There remained only the making of arrangements covering the ordinary peace-time intercourse.