Background:

Homework assignment. Yup. A+. Sounds better with rhythmical beating of a gavel. It's William Borah's final statement to Congress, in regards to the Treaty of Versailles. He opposed it heartily.

I cannot bring myself to understand why this treaty has been brought before us. I cannot understand why our honorable President is trying to force upon us all this abomination of an agreement for us to sign the United States of America into. It violates everything we stand for.

Let me pose a few simple, clear points I think President Wilson has missed, or overlooked. By agreeing to this League of Nations, we are giving one man, ONE MAN, the power of our nation's future. This nation is based on checks and balances, with no one branch of people ruling the nation! Five hundred people rule this branch, remember - yet we still are a nation based on trusting instead that no one man, or group of men, can determine our future. How can you, as members of this nation, allow yourselves to give any one man control over your future? And yet, by suggesting this Treaty of Versailles, you clearly do that very thing, sending one man to a table that will decide the future of the world...

Who, in this nation, has the right to declare war? Congress, the voice of the people. That is the only way it can be. It is not one man who goes to war. It is the people. We speak for the people. Thus we declare war. Who will decide when and where our troops go, ultimately and irrevocably, because of this treaty? One man. Do you have that much trust in any man, to believe that he knows the will of our Nation?

Do you doubt me? Do you say that Congress has the right to stop any troop movements before they occur? Do you know what a treaty is? We can violate this treaty, and destroy forever foreign trust and negotiations, perhaps turning the very League of Nations we created upon ourselves - for, the "collective security" of the whole must not be compromised by any nation, no matter how great. That is us, my friends!

Congress appears to have no choice but to sign this treaty. It is our 'moral obligation', as placed by our venerable President Wilson, as well as the other honorable nations of this world. As it will be our moral obligation to send our troops to war if the representatives of other nations (along with our singular representative, representing 110 million people) decide it should be so. How can we allow our people to have their freedom stolen this way? It is against all that we are built upon!

The United States was meant to be an isolationist country. We were built as a power to defend ourselves and our freedom. Would you sign over your freedom, and the freedom of 110 million people, to guarantee that the freedom of another nation is secure? Do you think, as we meddle in European affairs, that we can resist them attempting to meddle in our own? That we have any right to try? That by dictating to the world what is right and wrong, we do not also take upon ourselves an accountability for our actions? Do we not establish a responsibility to obey the nations of Europe? Do you trust these imperial nations?

The 'reservations' are completely worthless. They do not destroy this despicable treaty, that forever binds our actions with those of Europe. Wilson claims it is our moral obligation to sign this treaty. I contend it is our moral right to seperate ourselves from the nations of Europe, and their power-grubbing wars. Isn't that what our country is about? Rights? Well, forget them, if you sign that treaty.

In signing this treaty, in becoming one of the Great Four nations of this world, one of the Ruling Powers, does not America itself become a dictator to the other nations? Do we not decide their future, tell them where to go and what to do? Is that not our intent, indeed? Have we done any less than declare their morals suspect, or blatantly wrong? We call them imperial - I just did, and you accepted that. We say they wish only land, and care naught for the people! We are very sure to protect the peoples of other nations, to give them the great gift of democracy, like it or not, while sacrificing the world's own choices. We shall, perhaps, become one of the great and benevolent rulers of this world. Yet we will not have our own destiny in hand as we do so, having sold it for power.

Please, before you sell our country's soul to the European demons, consider what we have now! America is a happy and prosperous nation. We are proud! We are the kings of our own destiny! Every man, woman, and child owns their own life! We can not risk giving that up, for anything!

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