WOODROW WILSON AND THE ORIGINS OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

This dissertation examines the intellectual, political, and diplomatic origins of Woodrow Wilson's sponsorship of the League of Nations to 1918. It traces the roots of the League in Wilson's early life and academic career; in particular, it emphasizes Wilson's Presbyterian covenantal religious heritage, his ideas about democracy, international law, and political morality, as well as his conception of his own role in the "historical mission" of the United States.; The dissertation also explores Wilson's relationship with the American peace movement and his endeavors on behalf of international arbitration and disarmament prior to the outbreak of the First World War. By early 1917, Wilson fully synthesized the objectives of collective security, arbitration, disarmament, and self-determination into a single program based upon the instrumentality of a league of nations. This quest for a "community of nations" is placed within the context of both Wilson's mediatorial efforts during the period of American neutrality and his wartime diplomacy.; The study also offers an analysis of the Pan-American Pact, first proposed in late 1914. With the Pact, Wilson attempted unsuccessfully to establish a hemispheric alliance tantamount to collective security; his motivations, in part, were to construct a model system which he could show the Europeans in order to induce them to accept his mediation, and to establish a regional foundation for the League of Nations itself.; The nature of Wilson's approach to collective security, his first draft of the covenant of the league, as well as the contributions of American and European internationalists are also examined. The dissertation concludes with an assessment of Wilson's domestic political support as he set sail for France in December 1918. The epilogue provides an overview of the Covenant of the League of Nations which Wilson presented to a Plenary Session of the Preliminary Peace Conference on February 14, 1919.