Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points Explained | Primary Source Close Read

0:00 Hello, and welcome back to the Bill of Rights Institute’s. Close reads. We’ve been looking at different major events in American foreign policy. Each of these moments are products of their own historical time, but together, they show a general trend of change. Understanding that change helps us to better understand American history. Today, we’re going to zoom in on one of those biggest moments to help us better

0:20 understand how American foreign policy has changed over time. President Woodrow Wilson brought the United States into the First World War, asserting its armed forces would, quote, fight to make the world safe for democracy. Political liberty would be the foundation upon which world peace was built. This framing, or presentation of the United States’ purpose in entering the First World War

0:42 marked a new chapter, both in terms of American foreign policy and in how the United States would approach global issues in terms of policy. This was the first time the United States had joined a major conflict in Europe. Wilson’s rhetoric also changed how the United States identified what was within its own self interest. In 1918, Wilson presented his 14

1:03 Point Plan as a program to preserve peace in Europe after the end of the war. He hoped that the plan would both establish a peace treaty and create a just and cooperative international order to prevent future wars. Wilson’s idealism was quickly exposed when allies in Europe began demanding things of Germany and altered the final peace plan that would emerge.

1:25 Disagreements over the plan with Henry Cabot Lodge and other members of Congress further revealed the plan’s limitations. Today, we’re going to look at the text of the 14 Points Plan and examine the world order that it hoped to create. We’ll also discuss the effect America’s entry into the First World War and Wilson’s rhetoric had on American foreign policy in the 20th century.

1:46 To help me with this exploration, I’ve invited Tony Williams, BRI’s Senior Fellow, to help me understand exactly what’s going on here. If you enjoy this video, please be sure and check out our other close read videos. Our most recent ones, as I mentioned, have been dealing with various significant moments of American foreign policy, some of which we’ll mention today.

2:07 All right, well, Tony, thanks for joining me and help me to work through and better understand this moment in this document. Kirk thanks. It’s really a great topic and a great series. Yeah, thank you. So we’ll start with a broad question of just what are these 14 points? What’s Wilson’s goal, and why is he pulling these together? Right. Well, Wilson has a view that there would

2:29 be peace without victory and that he could establish certain principles that would guide not only American foreign policy. But he’s really looking larger at the issue of trying to establish sort of a perpetual peace and an end of war. Right. World War I was called the war to end all wars, and Wilson very much has that goal in mind when he crafts the 14 points

2:55 and then releases them in a speech in January of 1918. So he’s trying to, as I understand it, put together a sort of world order that was intended to maintain or create, I guess, for the first time ever, this perpetual idea of peace. Had any kind of system existed prior to this? Or I guess, how is it that nations around the world had, up to this point,

3:18 tried to mediate when they had differences or challenges or problems? Right. Great question. Although there had been some plans similar to this by various thinkers over the centuries, European diplomacy and war was really guided by the idea of balance of power,

3:40 that the way to kind of prevent kind of nations from becoming aggressive and trying to take over other nations was for alliances to form and defeat them. And so trying to maintain that balance of power among the various imperial powers and major powers of Europe really had

4:02 guided things for a couple of centuries at that point. Cool. So that’s where when I’ve heard things like the peace of Westphelia and Congress of Vienna, those are the kinds of things that you’re sort of alluding to. Right, there wasn’t anything like in Wilson’s conception of having some kind of League of nations or today we

4:26 would understand the same organization as the United Nations. You wouldn’t have this League trying to enforce the peace and making it an international responsibility of all the member nations. That was really something that was done through power politics and diplomacy the way it had been for a long time.

4:49 And when we’re talking about power during this period, and we’ve referenced it a few times, but we’re really talking about Europe, because Europe in many ways was sort of central to the commercial, the international commercial market, both economically but also militarily. But the United States hadn’t really entered into that. So the United States, although we had sort of European connections, this was the first time

5:11 that we had really significantly become a part of a major European war. What kind of change was that? I mean, why was that so significant? And was it noted as significant at the time? Yeah. Don’t forget us. Foreign policy, largely guided by the Monroe Doctrine, that we’re going to stay out of European affairs as long as European power stayed

5:33 out of the Western Hemisphere, north and South America, which was seen as Americans under American control and wouldn’t intervene in Europe. But that changes a bit. Right. With the Spanish American War and America becomes more of a global power

5:58 and we don’t enter World War I, but then eventually we do enter. And Wilson has a very sort of expansive understanding of America’s role in that war besides just contributing to Allied victory. Yeah, interestingly. That’s right. We just talked about my last close read, and we looked at both the specific sort

6:22 of entry points, which was unrestricted submarine warfare and attacks upon American shipping, and also the Zimmerman Telegram. But then we also expanded on that, looked at this again, this sort of sweeping rhetoric of making the world safe for democracy and that political liberty would be the sort of the foundation for peace, world peace, moving forward. So with that,

6:43 I guess in sort of that context in mind, let’s take a look at the document. So, Tony, in looking at the document itself, it’s sort of divided up into a few different sections, and our primary source on the Bill of Rights Institute website that hosts this, where you can take a look at it, actually has it broken down that way. So I think it might be helpful just to kind of approach it and we can talk a little about the context in each section.

7:03 So in this first section, it’s sort of looking at the peaceful relations between the countries that are at war. And so it’s saying sort of these broad things, like the second bullet says, absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters alike, in peace and in war. Obviously, that was something that we just mentioned. It’s what brought the US into World War One.

7:26 But what’s really going on here? What is Wilson attempting to do in these first few bullets? Well, in the first five points of the 14 points, we have these laudatory goals. We want free trade, we want freedom of the seas. These are sort of liberal minded, democratic kinds of ways to achieve peace.

7:55 So they’re very praiseworthy in that sense. But in another sense, they’re perhaps a little too idealistic. Britain and France are especially going to be against these free trade because they have empires. The Republicans in the Senate are going to question whether these first five

8:19 points conflict with the Monroe Doctrine, for example. So while they’re good and praiseworthy goals to have arms reduction, who’s opposed to arms reduction? Right. But the simple fact is that Wilson sort of ignores national self interest.

8:41 Or at least he thinks that all the nations of the world are going to agree with him that peace and perpetual peace is the goal and that they’re willing to sublimate. They’re willing to tamp down their own national interests in the pursuit of these

9:02 idealistic goals and to achieve lasting peace. Like I said, I just don’t think that’s very realistic, as laudatory as these goals are. Yeah, I think it’s particularly interesting, too, given the context that started the First World War, which much of it had to do with these kinds of issues.

9:25 And it’s sort of a complex story with lots of alliances, germany feeling as though its existence is threatened by being surrounded by different allies, so we don’t have time to go into that. But a lot of the things that were also sort of behind the scenes in motivating it were these questions of empire, were these questions of determining the sovereignty of faraway colonial claims.

9:47 And so it’s interesting to me that those first five he’s putting forward are so out of step with the world that Europe was existing in. And I guess in some ways, you could think about it, he’s sort of responding to the causes of the war, but in another way, he’s sort of missing the fact that the nations that are fighting over it aren’t fighting to change this system.

10:07 They’re just fighting to sort of reorient the balance of power and accomplish their own ends, their own national self interests, like you had mentioned. And so in speaking of that, too. So this war has been going on since 1914. It’s now 1918, and although trench warfare has sort of, like, bogged down in Western Europe,

10:29 and less so now because of the Russian Revolution and the Eastern Theater, but there’s still been some conquered territory. So six, seven and eight seem to point to some of those concrete territories that are being exchanged and feel a little bit more, I guess, like what you would see in a traditional peace treaty. But could you just talk a little bit about what’s going on with these next few?

10:52 Yeah, these next few and really the eight after the first five are really targeting territorial claims and trying to establish peace through the settlement of these contested national boundaries. Again, one of the biggest problems

11:13 that immediately come up are how are you going to resolve them? The countries who make these respective claims on this territory still want that territory and they’re not really going to give up those claims. You also have the adjustment from several different empires that are collapsing.

11:35 I mean, the Ottoman Empire, the Russian Empire, the German Empire and the Austria-Hungarian Empire. These are significant changes for the face of Europe and Eurasia very broadly that if you’re going to try to make these firm boundaries respective of these nationalities,

12:00 of these ethnic nationalities and so forth it’s just going to be impossible because there’s just so much diversity in a lot of areas. And you can’t isolate Polish from Germans, from Czechs and all the other different groups that are there. So this is really going to be sort of an impossible task.

12:21 But again, I think they’re all guided towards establishing this permanent peace, trying to settle, as you rightly pointed out, sort of the causes of war both in World War I and just warfare in general. Yeah. So you’re sort of touching on something that I think these next bullet points,

12:43 everything from nine up until 13 point to, which is this big concept called self determination that becomes obviously, it’s a significant conversation that’s happening now, but it also becomes very important later into the 20th century. So what is self determination and sort of how is Wilson thinking about it and using it here in his 14 points?

13:06 All right, well, again, it’s a praiseworthy goal. I mean, think about the American system of government, of self-governance. We appreciate principles like popular sovereignty and consent. And of course he’s trying to make the world safer democracy. So he expects democracy, democratic type of regimes to replace these autocratic imperial systems,

13:30 monarchies that had existed in that area of the world for centuries. And so he believes that if you give each of these peoples and he’s really kind of referring to ethnic and national peoples within these larger empires,

13:51 he feels if you can give them a voice in their government, if you can provide for popular sovereignty and democratic self rule, you’re going to establish a more peaceful liberalized world. And again a very praiseworthy goal but he wants to kind of impose democracy

14:12 where it hadn’t really existed before or at least export it. And the question is whether the peoples were prepared for democratic self rule and whether they wanted it and whether the rulers of those areas wanted it too. Yeah. And the Bill of Rights Institute this is something we think a lot about. And thinking about what it means

14:32 to actually go out and cultivate a democracy or republic, a self governing community, is complicated business and so imposing that comes with challenges and even the paradox of sort of imposing liberty is an interesting one to think about and is certainly something at play here.

14:53 But his method for doing so is this 14th Point, which is this idea of the League of Nations. So I think whenever this usually comes up it’s in the same breath as like oh, it was the first United Nations and I guess A: is that the case? And I guess more importantly, what did Wilson really see this as trying to accomplish?

15:15 Yeah, I mean, for Wilson this is really the heart of what he called a covenant, right? It’s sort of in this sort of pseudo religious language, that this is a world agreement that is going to provide the basis, as I’ve said several times already, for this permanent, perpetual peace among the world.

15:37 And that member nations are going to be able to settle disputes in this league, both economic or even other kinds of conflicts that can ratchet up towards war. But eventually if there were any aggressor nations that the members would join together and squelch any kind

16:00 of aggression and therefore you’d be able to enforce the peace. Again, this runs smackdab even into his own system of government. Right. The Senate has a real problem with this because America as a sovereign nation has a constitutional order and that constitution says Congress will

16:25 declare war and it may do so for a variety of reasons. Right? It may do so for more idealistic kind of spreading democracy goals like Wilson has or it may be to protect American interests or whether we’re attacked and so forth. So there are a variety of reasons why Congress might declare war, but it declares war not an international body.

16:51 And so the senators who were opposed to the Versailles Treaty felt like this was going to be a surrender of American national sovereignty and of that congressional prerogative to declare war. Yeah. So you’ve anticipated kind of some of my next question, which is just going to be what happened to this plan? And I guess, how does what happened reveal

17:13 the idealism that was sort of front and center within Wilson’s 14 points? Yeah, I mean, I think we’ve alluded to Wilson’s idealism a lot. I think he has a very expansive vision of American foreign policy and spreading democracy and achieving that lasting peace,

17:34 but it also shows the real constitutional struggles in our country. And I think that rightfully so. The Senate had a number of irreconcilables who were just not going to ratify this at all. They thought Wilson was being not an idealistic, but highly partisan in the way he went about the peace conference.

18:00 But in addition to that, there were many people who were willing in the Senate to compromise to say, look, if you take Article Ten out, which gave the power to declare war more to the League of nations than Congress, they said, we’ll definitely consider ratifying.

18:21 And so he goes on the speaking Tour. He’s trying to whip up enthusiasm. He meets receptive crowds, just like he did over in Paris and other cities when he was doing a speaking tour to whip up enthusiasm for the Versailles Treaty. And despite all of this popular attention, the Senate is still unwilling, in the end to pass the Versailles Treaty with this League of Nations.

18:45 So, ironically, although the League of Nations is Wilson’s conception, his idea, eventually the United States doesn’t even ratify the treaty and doesn’t join the League of Nations. So there’s a lot of irony in the events of 1917, 1918, 1919.

19:05 Yeah, I mean, what an incredible story, too, to have something that does eventually shape the League does get formed. It shapes the way that the time between the First World War and the Second World War, which breaks out in 1939, is much of foreign policy is impacted by this treaty, and yet the United States is not a part of it.

19:26 And I think that that’s an interesting facet that comes out of this, as is this sense of idealism versus realism, which doesn’t emerge here, but is sort of things that get talked about in foreign policy circles. And so I guess my last question for you, Tony, as an inflection point, as a movement that really marks this sort

19:47 of change over time, how big of a deal is the 14 points, and how does it sort of affect these later moments? Wilson’s idealistic foreign policy really shapes a lot of American foreign policy, especially Franklin Roosevelt during World War II, is highly influenced, has much sort of the same vision,

20:11 and encounters some of the same difficulties that Wilson does. America became a force for spreading democracy, right? You see this with the Truman Doctrine, which we’ve talked about on our various shows here, and you very much see it in episodes in the Cold War, like participating in the Vietnam War, in other wars.

20:36 Certainly George Bush, George W. Bush in 2003 was very much guided by spreading democracy to Iraq. American foreign policy was, in Washington’s view, and in his successors, to be guided by a liberality, to be guided by a friendliness towards

20:59 other nations, towards just policies with other nations, just relations. And so that’s always been a very important part of it at the same time that America has decided to also protect its national self interest, and it’s done so in various ways throughout our history. But something was a little different there, right, with Wilson and with some

21:21 of his successors in the 20th and into the 21st century of exporting democracy. So we’re still grappling, actually, with all these issues. They’re really relevant towards students and towards all of us as citizens, because these are the kind of debates that craft our foreign policy. Whether we should send troops to various

21:42 places like Ukraine, for example, today, whether we should have tariffs and so forth impose tariffs on nations like China. So these are sort of evergreen topics in foreign policy that are not going to go away anytime soon. Thank you, Tony, for joining me. I think I’m starting to get my arms around the significance of both these 14 points

22:03 and what they mean for the broader American foreign policy. And as I mentioned at the top of the show, we have investigated and looked at different moments of American history, whether it is Washington’s Farewell Address or all the way up through Reagan’s speech asking Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down this wall, which Tony took a look at to other foreign policy moments throughout.

22:27 So I encourage you to take a look at our playlist on YouTube for more in depth study of this. And we’ll also share some links to some resources, should you want to read a little bit more. And as always, stay tuned to our channel. We’re always doing different conversations with different interesting people who are publishing books and talking about topics relevant to history, government and civics and exploring different moments, different art pictures, different primary sources throughout American history.

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