USA HISTORY

Who had to approve the Treaty of Versailles after WWI?

(A) Woodrow Wilson

(B) ** The Senate

(C) The Supreme Court

Concept note-1: -In November Lodge sent to the Senate floor a treaty with 14 reservations, but no amendments. In the face of Wilson’s continued unwillingness to negotiate, the Senate on November 19, 1919, for the first time in its history, rejected a peace treaty.

Concept note-2: -The Senate has, at times, rejected treaties when its members felt their concerns were not adequately addressed. In 1919 the Senate rejected the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended World War I, in part because President Woodrow Wilson had failed to take senators’ objections to the agreement into consideration.

Concept note-3: -On July 10, 1919, the president of the United States, for the first time since 1789, personally delivered a treaty to the Senate. This was no ordinary treaty; it was the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I and establishing the League of Nations.

Concept note-4: -Irreconcilables, Senators Borah and Johnson, refuse to compromise on the passage of the Treaty of Versailles which Senator Lodge is guiding through the Senate.

Concept note-5: -Some senators who opposed the Treaty of Versailles believed the proposed League of Nations would infringe upon U.S. sovereignty and Congress’s power to declare war. Following the Senate’s defeat of the treaty, Congress formally declared the end of World War I by joint resolution in 1921.