With a profound sense of the solemn and even tragical character of the step I am taking and of the grave responsibilities which it involves, but in unhesitating obedience to what I deem my constitutional duty, I advise that the Congress declare the recent course of the Imperial German Government to be in fact nothing less than war against the Government and people of the United States; that it formally accept the status of belligerent which has thus been thrust upon it, and that it take immediate steps not only to put the country in a more thorough state of defense but also to exert all its power and employ all its resources to bring the Government of the German Empire to terms and end the war.
What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation....
While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.
We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.
A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.
Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honour.
What this will involve is clear. It will involve the utmost practicable cooperation in counsel and action with the governments now at war with Germany, and, as incident to that, the extension to those governments of the most liberal financial credits, in order that our resources may so far as possible be added to theirs. It will involve the organization and mobilization of all the material resources of the country to supply the materials of war and serve the incidental needs of the nation in the most abundant and yet the most economical and efficient way possible. It will involve the immediate full equipment of the Navy in all respects but particularly in supplying it with the best means of dealing with the enemy's submarines. It will involve the immediate addition to the armed forces of the United States already provided for by law in case of war at least 500,000 men, who should, in my opinion, be chosen upon the principle of universal liability to service, and also the authorization of subsequent additional increments of equal force so soon as they may be needed and can be handled in training. It will involve also, of course, the granting of adequate credits to the Government, sustained, I hope, so far as they can equitably be sustained by the present generation, by well conceived taxation....
While we do these things, these deeply momentous things, let us be very clear, and make very clear to all the world what our motives and our objects are. My own thought has not been driven from its habitual and normal course by the unhappy events of the last two months, and I do not believe that the thought of the nation has been altered or clouded by them I have exactly the same things in mind now that I had in mind when I addressed the Senate on the 22d of January last; the same that I had in mind when I addressed the Congress on the 3d of February and on the 26th of February. Our object now, as then, is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power and to set up amongst the really free and self-governed peoples of the world such a concert of purpose and of action as will henceforth ensure the observance of those principles. Neutrality is no longer feasible or desirable where the peace of the world is involved and the freedom of its peoples, and the menace to that peace and freedom lies in the existence of autocratic governments backed by organized force which is controlled wholly by their will, not by the will of their people. We have seen the last of neutrality in such circumstances. We are at the beginning of an age in which it will be insisted that the same standards of conduct and of responsibility for wrong done shall be observed among nations and their governments that are observed among the individual citizens of civilized states.
We have no quarrel with the German people. We have no feeling towards them but one of sympathy and friendship. It was not upon their impulse that their Government acted in entering this war. It was not with their previous knowledge or approval. It was a war determined upon as wars used to be determined upon in the old, unhappy days when peoples were nowhere consulted by their rulers and wars were provoked and waged in the interest of dynasties or of little groups of ambitious men who were accustomed to use their fellow men as pawns and tools. Self-governed nations do not fill their neighbour states with spies or set the course of intrigue to bring about some critical posture of affairs which will give them an opportunity to strike and make conquest. Such designs can be successfully worked out only under cover and where no one has the right to ask questions. Cunningly contrived plans of deception or aggression, carried, it may be, from generation to generation, can be worked out and kept from the light only within the privacy of courts or behind the carefully guarded confidences of a narrow and privileged class. They are happily impossible where public opinion commands and insists upon full information concerning all the nation's affairs.
A steadfast concert for peace can never be maintained except by a partnership of democratic nations. No autocratic government could be trusted to keep faith within it or observe its covenants. It must be a league of honour, a partnership of opinion. Intrigue would eat its vitals away; the plottings of inner circles who could plan what they would and render account to no one would be a corruption seated at its very heart. Only free peoples can hold their purpose and their honour steady to a common end and prefer the interests of mankind to any narrow interest of their own.
Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia? Russia was known by those who knew it best to have been always in fact democratic at heart, in all the vital habits of her thought, in all the intimate relationships of her people that spoke their natural instinct, their habitual attitude towards life. The autocracy that crowned the summit of her political structure, long as it had stood and terrible as was the reality of its power, was not in fact Russian in origin, character, or purpose; and now it has been shaken off and the great, generous Russian people have been added in all their naive majesty and might to the forces that are fighting for freedom in the world, for justice, and for peace. Here is a fit partner for a league of honour.
私が取っている措置の厳粛かつ悲劇的な性格と、それに伴う重大な責任を深く感じながらも、私が憲法上の義務と考えるものに誠実に従うことにより、私は、議会に対し、ドイツ帝国政府の最近の経過を、実際にはアメリカ合衆国政府と国民に対する戦争に他ならないと宣言することを勧告します。 このようにして押し付けられた交戦国の地位を正式に受け入れ、国防をより徹底した状態にするだけでなく、ドイツ帝国政府を和解させ、戦争を終結させるために、あらゆる力を発揮し、あらゆる資源を活用するために、直ちに措置を講じることを勧告します。
これが何を意味するかは明らかである。 それには、現在ドイツと戦争中の各国政府との協議と行動において、現実的に可能な限りの最大限の協力が必要であり、それに付随して、我々の資源が可能な限り彼らの資源に加えられるように、最も自由な財政的信用をそれらの政府に拡大することが必要である。 それは、戦争の材料を供給し、最も豊富でありながらも、最も経済的かつ効率的な方法で、国家の付随的なニーズに応えるために、国内のあらゆる物質的資源を組織化し、動員することを含むであろう。 これには、あらゆる点で海軍の装備を直ちにフル装備することが必要であるが、特に敵の潜水艦に対処するための最良の手段を海軍に供給することが必要である。 それは、戦争の場合には、すでに法律で規定されている米国の軍隊に、少なくとも50万人の兵力を直ちに追加することを含むものであり、私の考えでは、兵役に対する普遍的責任の原則に基づいて選ばれるべきであり、また、必要とされる可能性があり、訓練で対処できるようになったらすぐに、同程度の兵力の追加増員を認めるべきである。 これにはもちろん、政府への適切なクレジットの付与も含まれており、現世代が公平に維持できる範囲で、よく考え抜かれた課税（....）によって維持されることを望む。
私たちがこれらのことをする間、これらの非常に重要なことをする間、私たちは非常に明確にして、私たちの動機と目的が何であるかを全世界に明確にしておきましょう。 私自身の考えは、この2ヶ月間の不幸な出来事によって、その習慣的で正常な道から追いやられたわけではないし、国民の考えがそれらによって変化したり、曇ったりしたとは思っていない。 今の私たちの目的は、当時と同様に、世界の生活における平和と正義の原則を、利己的で独裁的な権力に対抗して擁護し、世界の本当に自由で自治された人々の間に、これらの原則の遵守を将来にわたって確実なものとするような目的と行動の協調を確立することである。 中立は、世界の平和とその人民の自由が関与している場合には、もはや実行可能でも望ましいものでもなく、また、その平和と自由に対する脅威は、人民の意思ではなく、完全にその意思によって支配される組織的な力に支えられた独裁的な政府の存在にある。 私たちは、このような状況で中立性の最後を見てきました。 私たちは、国家とその政府の間では、文明国家の個々の市民の間で観察されるのと同じ行動基準と過ちに対する責任が観察されることが主張される時代の始まりにいるのです。
我々はドイツ国民と何の争いもしていない。 彼らに対する感情はなく、同情と友情だけである。 ドイツ政府がこの戦争に参戦したのは、彼らの衝動によるものではありません。 彼らの事前の知識や承認があったわけではない。 この戦争は、昔の不幸な時代には戦争が決定されていたように、戦争が決定されていたのです。 自治国家は、隣国をスパイで埋め尽くしたり、あるいは、自分たちが攻撃して征服する機会となるような危機的な情勢をもたらすために、陰謀を企てたりすることはありません。 このような計画は、誰も質問する権利を持たない隠れた場所でのみ、成功裏に練り上げることができる。 世代から世代へと受け継がれてきたかもしれないが、巧妙に策略された欺瞞や侵略の計画は、法廷のプライバシーの中で、あるいは狭く特権的な階級の慎重に守られた秘密の中でのみ、巧妙に練り上げられて日の目を見ないようにすることができるのである。 世論が国家のあらゆる問題に関する完全な情報を要求し、それを主張するような状況では、このようなことは喜ばしいことに不可能である。
平和のための堅実な協調は、民主主義国家の協力なしには決して維持できない。 独裁的な政府は、その中で信頼を保ち、それを守ることができるとは思えませんでした。
