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Wilson's 14 Points
January 8, 1918:
President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points
(Delivered in Joint Session, January 8, 1918)
Gentlemen of the Congress:
Once more, as repeatedly before, the spokesmen of the Central Empires
have indicated their desire to discuss the objects of the war and
the possible basis of a general peace. Parleys have been in progress
at Brest-Litovsk between Russsian representatives and representatives
of the Central Powers to which the attention of all the belligerents
have been invited for the purpose of ascertaining whether it may be
possible to extend these parleys into a general conference with regard
to terms of peace and settlement.
The Russian representatives presented not only a perfectly definite
statement of the principles upon which they would be willing to conclude
peace but also an equally definite program of the concrete application
of those principles. The representatives of the Central Powers, on
their part, presented an outline of settlement which, if runch less
definite, seemed susceptible of liberal interpretation until their
specific program of practical terms was added. That program proposed
no concessions at all either to the sovereignty of Russia or to the
preferences of the populations with whose fortunes it dealt, but meant,
in a word, that the Central Empires were to keep every foot of territory
their armed forces had occupied -- every province, every city, every
point of vantage -- as a permanent addition to their territories and
their power. 
It is a reasonable conjecture that the general principles of settlement
which they at first suggested originated with the more liberal statesmen
of Germany and Austria, the men who have begun to feel the force of
their own people's thought and purpose, while the concrete terms of
actual settlement came from the military leaders who have no thought
but to keep what they have got. The negotiations have been broken
off. The Russian representatives were sincere and in earnest. They
cannot entertain such proposals of conquest and domination.
The whole incident is full of signifiances. It is also full of perplexity.
With whom are the Russian representatives dealing? For whom are the
representatives of the Central Empires speaking? Are they speaking
for the majorities of their respective parliaments or for the minority
parties, that military and imperialistic minority which has so far
dominated their whole policy and controlled the affairs of Turkey
and of the Balkan states which have felt obliged to become their associates
in this war?
The Russian representatives have insisted, very justly, very wisely,
and in the true spirit of modern democracy, that the conferences they
have been holding with the Teutonic and Turkish statesmen should be
held within open not closed, doors, and all the world has been audience,
as was desired. To whom have we been listening, then? To those who
speak the spirit and intention of the resolutions of the German Reichstag
of the 9th of July last, the spirit and intention of the Liberal leaders
and parties of Germany, or to those who resist and defy that spirit
and intention and insist upon conquest and subjugation? Or are we
listening, in fact, to both, unreconciled and in open and hopeless
contradiction? These are very serious and pregnant questions. Upon
the answer to them depends the peace of the world.
But, whatever the results of the parleys at Brest-Litovsk, whatever
the confusions of counsel and of purpose in the utterances of the
spokesmen of the Central Empires, they have again attempted to acquaint
the world with their objects in the war and have again challenged
their adversaries to say what their objects are and what sort of settlement
they would deem just and satisfactory. There is no good reason why
that challenge should not be responded to, and responded to with the
utmost candor. We did not wait for it. Not once, but again and again,
we have laid our whole thought and purpose before the world, not in
general terms only, but each time with sufficient definition to make
it clear what sort of definite terms of settlement must necessarily
spring out of them. Within the last week Mr. Lloyd George has spoken
with admirable candor and in admirable spirit for the people and Government
of Great Britain.
There is no confusion of counsel among the adversaries of the Central
Powers, no uncertainty of principle, no vagueness of detail. The only
secrecy of counsel, the only lack of fearless frankness, the only
failure to make definite statement of the objects of the war, lies
with Germany and her allies. The issues of life and death hang upon
these definitions. No statesman who has the least conception of his
responsibility ought for a moment to permit himself to continue this
tragical and appalling outpouring of blood and treasure unless he
is sure beyond a peradventure that the objects of the vital sacrifice
are part and parcel of the very life of Society and that the people
for whom he speaks think them right and imperative as he does.
There is, moreover, a voice calling for these definitions of principle
and of purpose which is, it seems to me, more thrilling and more compelling
than any of the many moving voices with which the troubled air of
the world is filled. It is the voice of the Russian people. They are
prostrate and all but hopeless, it would seem, before the grim power
of Germany, which has hitherto known no relenting and no pity. Their
power, apparently, is shattered. And yet their soul is not subservient.
They will not yield either in principle or in action. Their conception
of what is right, of what is humane and honorable for them to accept,
has been stated with a frankness, a largeness of view, a generosity
of spirit, and a universal human sympathy which must challenge the
admiration of every friend of mankind; and they have refused to compound
their ideals or desert others that they themselves may be safe.
They call to us to say what it is that we desire, in what, if in anything,
our purpose and our spirit differ from theirs; and I believe that
the people of the United States would wish me to respond, with utter
simplicity and frankness. Whether their present leaders believe it
or not, it is our heartfelt desire and hope that some way may be opened
whereby we may be privileged to assist the people of Russia to attain
their utmost hope of liberty and ordered peace.
It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when
they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve
and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day
of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret
covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and
likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world.
It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose
thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which
makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with
justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time
the objects it has in view.
We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which
touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible
unless they were corrected and the world secure once for all against
their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing
peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to
live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving
nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine
its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the
other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression.
All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest,
and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done
to others it will not be done to us. The program of the world's peace,
therefore, is our program; and that program, the only possible program,
as we see it, is this:
I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall
be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy
shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial
waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed
in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of
international covenants.
III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and
the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the
nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its
maintenance.
IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will
be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
V. A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all
colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that
in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of
the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable
claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
VI. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement
of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest
cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her
an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination
of her own political development and national policy and assure her
of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions
of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of
every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment
accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be
the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs
as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent
and unselfish sympathy.
VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored,
without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common
with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this
will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which
they have themselves set and determined for the government of their
relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure
and validity of international law is forever impaired.
VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions
restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter
of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for
nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once
more be made secure in the interest of all.
IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along
clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we
wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest
opportunity to autonomous development.
XI. Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied
territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the
sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another
determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines
of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the
political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the
several Balkan states should be entered into.
XII. The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured
a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under
Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an
absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the
Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the
ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include
the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which
should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political
and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed
by international covenant.
XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific
covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political
independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.
In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions
of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments
and peoples associated together against the Imperialists. We cannot
be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together
until the end. For such arrangements and covenants we are willing
to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved; but only
because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable
peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations
to war, which this program does remove. We have no jealousy of German
greatness, and there is nothing in this program that impairs it. We
grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific
enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable.
We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate
influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or
with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate
herself with us and the other peace- loving nations of the world in
covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to
accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, -- the
new world in which we now live, -- instead of a place of mastery.
Neither do we presume to suggest to her any alteration or modification
of her institutions. But it is necessary, we must frankly say, and
necessary as a preliminary to any intelligent dealings with her on
our part, that we should know whom her spokesmen speak for when they
speak to us, whether for the Reichstag majority or for the military
party and the men whose creed is imperial domination.
We have spoken now, surely, in terms too concrete to admit of any
further doubt or question. An evident principle runs through the whole
program I have outlined. It is the principle of justice to all peoples
and nationalities, and their right to live on equal terms of liberty
and safety with one another, whether they be strong or weak.
Unless this principle be made its foundation no part of the structure
of international justice can stand. The people of the United States
could act upon no other principle; and to the vindication of this
principle they are ready to devote their lives, their honor, and everything
they possess. The moral climax of this the culminating and final war
for human liberty has come, and they are ready to put their own strength,
their own highest purpose, their own integrity and devotion to the
test.
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