要求国会对德国宣战?Ask Congress to Declare War Against Germany
伍德罗·威尔逊 Woodrow Wilson
伍德罗·威尔逊1856-1924,生于美国弗吉尼亚州斯汤城,祖先大部分是苏格兰血统。少年时代就醉心于政治,三度出任英国首相的威廉·格莱斯顿是他心目中崇拜的英雄。威尔逊16岁进入戴维森学院,29岁获博士学位,30岁开始在大学任教。1902年发表的《美国人民史》被认为是其学术上的最高成就。同年威尔逊出任普林斯顿大学校长。1909年当选为新泽西州长。1912年威尔逊作为民主党候选人当选为美国第28任总统并且在后来获得连任。1919年,威尔逊被授予当年的诺贝尔和平奖。
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这是一场想要征服整个世界的战争。美国的船只已经被击沉,许多美国人付出了生命。令人震惊的是其他友好中立国的许多船只和人员也都同样遭到袭击而沉入大海。没有任何歧视。这是对整个人类的挑战,每个国家都必须决定如何迎接这场挑战。我们为自己做出的选择,必须是深思熟虑,判断适度后的决定,它必须符合我们民族的性格和目的。我们必须把激愤的情绪放在一边。我们的目的不是报复, 或是维护我们的国力,而是维护正义,人类的正义;我们只是维护人类正义的战士。
去年2月26日,我在国会讲话时曾想,用武力维护我们中立国的权利,保卫我们在海上的权利,防止非法挑衅,保卫我们人员的安全, 防止非法暴力,这就足够了。可现在看来,武装中立是不现实的。
尽管国际法规定:商船有权保卫自己,反击在公海上追击自己的私掠船、巡洋舰和任何看得见的船只,可是用来袭击商船的却是德国潜水艇,商船怎能反击?更何况利用潜水艇本来就是非法的。在这种情况下,在这种严峻的时刻,只有在他们的意图暴露前就粉碎他们的阴谋才是明智的;既然要反对他们,那在他们一出现时就反对好了。在失去法律保护的海域内,中立国使用武装的权力还未曾被现代国际法专家质疑过,而德国政府却根本否认这种自卫的权力。德国政府发出通告说,我们在商船上配有武装自卫人员是非法的,将作为海盗对待。其实,武装中立本来就是徒劳无益的;而在这种情况下,在这样的要求面前,又岂止是徒劳呢?这很可能会引发战争;但实际上我们必然被拖入战争而又享受不到参战国的权利和实效。有一条我们不能选择、根本也不会选择的道路:那就是屈服的道路,也就是任由我们的国家和民族最神圣的权利遭到无视和侵犯的道路。我们现在一致反对的不是一般的侵权行为,而是一种将断送人类生活源泉的侵权行为。
我深深意识到我所采取措施的庄严性和悲剧性,也深深意识到我们所承担的责任是沉重的;但我又要毫不犹豫地履行我的合法职责。我请求国会向人民宣告,德国帝国主义政府近来的行为,实际上就是对美国政府和人民宣战;因此美国已经被迫正式进入战争状态。美国之所以采取直接的行动,不仅是要保卫国家的安全,而且还是要使用一切力量和资源迫使德国帝国政府停止战争。
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国会的先生们,我刚才向你们报告的是一项令人痛苦的任务。摆在我们面前的可能是漫长岁月的严酷考验和牺牲。把这个和平伟大国家的人民引入战争,引入这场有史以来最严重的灾难性战争是一件可怕的事;毕竟现在整个人类文明也似乎存亡未卜。但正义比和平更珍贵, 我们将为了心头最珍贵的东西而战,即为了民主、为了拥护自己政府的人民的权利、为了各国自由人民协同一致行使权力以取得最终自由而战。为了完成这项任务,我们愿意献出自己的财产和生命,献出我们的一切。美国人珍惜赋予她生命、幸福与和平的原则。现在是她为此原则奉献鲜血和力量的时候了,有上帝保佑,她别无选择。
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It is a war against all nations. American ships have been sunk, American lives taken, in ways, which it has stirred us very deeply to learn of, but the ships and people of other neutral and friendly nations have been sunk and overwhelmed in the waters in the same way. There has been no discrimination. The challenge is to all mankind. Each nation must decide for itself how it will meet it. The choice we make for ourselves must be made with a moderation of counsel and a temperateness of judgment befitting our character and our motives as a nation. We must put excited feeling away. Our motive will not be revenge or the victorious assertion of the physical might of the nation, but only the vindication of right, of human right, of which we are only a single champion.
When I addressed the Congress on the 26th of February last, I thought that it would suffice to assert our neutral rights with arms, our right to use the seas against unlawful interference, our right to keep our people safe against unlawful violence. But armed neutrality, it now appears, is impracticable. Because submarines are in effect outlaws when used as the German submarines have been used against merchant shipping, it is impossible to defend ships against their attacks as the law of nations has assumed that merchantmen would defend themselves against privateers or cruisers visible craft giving Chase upon the open sea. It is common prudence in such circumstances, grim necessity indeed, to endeavour to destroy them before they have shown their own intention. They must be dealt with upon sight, if dealt with at all. The German Government denies the right of neutrals to use arms at all within the areas of the sea which it has proscribed, even in the defense of rights which no modern publicist has ever before questioned their right to defend. The intimation is conveyed that the armed guards which we have placed on our merchant ships will be treated as beyond the pale of law and subject to be dealt with as pirates would be. Armed neutrality is ineffectual enough at best; in such circumstances and in the face of such pretensions it is worse than ineffectual; it is likely only to produce what it was meant to prevent; it is practically certain to draw us into the war without either the rights or the effectiveness of belligerents. There is one
choice we cannot make, we are incapable of making: we will not choose the path of submission and suffer the most sacred rights of our nation and our people to be ignored or violated. The wrongs against which we now array ourselves are no common wrongs; they cut to the very roots of human life.
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.
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It is a distressing and oppressive duty, gentlemen of the Congress, which I have performed in thus addressing you. There are, it may be, many months of fiery trial and sacrifice ahead of us. It is a fearful thing to lead this great peaceful people into war, into the most terrible and disastrous of all wars, civilization itself seeming to be in the balance. But the right is more precious than peace, and we shall fight for the things which we have always
carried nearest our hearts-for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own governments, for the dominion of right by such a concert of free peoples as shall itself at last free. To such a task we can dedicate our lives and our fortunes, everything we are and everything that we have, with the pride of those who know that the day has come when America is privileged to spend her blood and her might for the principles that gave her birth and happiness and the peace which she has treasured. God helping her, she can do no other.
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