der. The election in 1918 resulted in a clear Republican majority for the Senate and the House. This led President Wilson to “issue a public appeal for the election of a Democratic majority in both houses of Congress in order that he might be wholly unhampered in the approaching negotiations.” This was unsuccessful and showed to spectators that there was a difference of opinion between these two parties. The President felt even more opposition from his country when former President Theodore Roosevelt spoke openly of his lack of support when he stated, “our allies and our enemies, and Mr. Wilson himself, should all understand that Mr. Wilson has no authority whatever to speak for the American people at this time.” With the events that took place, Wilson faced a very painful question on his passage back to the United States. Without a Democratic senate would the Treaty of Versailles be ratified? President Wilson brought the Treaty of Versailles back to the Senate on July 10, 1920, but he found opposition from the Senate. The Senators that opposed the treaty were Henry Cabot Lodge, Alfred Beveridge, and other isolationists. It was these Senators that helped to sway the rest of the congress to deny the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles. The treaty was too extreme for most isolationists to accept. The American Senate with a Republican majority gave Henry Cabot Lodge both floor leader and the chairman of the committee of foreign relations. This gave Lodge an enormous amount of power because in treaties, “ the President would negotiate but the Senate must approve.” The senate accused Wilson of compromising too much with Clemenceau and George. They believed that this treaty infringed on American sovereignty and would later commit them to a war that did not involve the United States. It is in the constitution that only the congress of the United States could declare war, not an international or...
