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- 19 April, 1916
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- <l:h1>Wilson on the <i>Sussex </i>Case<l:/h1><br>
- United States, 64th Cong., 1st Sess., <i>House Document</i>1034. <br>
- President Wilson's remarks before Congress concerning the German sinking
- of the unarmed Channel steamer <i>Sussex</i> on March 24,1916.<!:hr><P>
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- ...I have deemed it my duty, therefore, to say to the Imperial German
- Government, that if it is still its purpose to prosecute relentless and
- indiscriminate warfare against vessels of commerce by the use of
- submarines, notwithstanding the now demonstrated impossibility of
- conducting that warfare in accordance with what the Government of the
- United States must consider the sacred and indisputable rules of
- international law and the universally recognized dictates of humanity,
- the Government of the United States is at last forced to the conclusion
- that there is but one course it can pursue; and that unless the Imperial
- German Government should now immediately declare and effect an abandonment
- of its present methods of warfare against passenger and freight carrying
- vessels this Government can have no choice but to sever diplomatic
- relations with the Government of the German Empire altogether.<P>
- This decision I have arrived at with the keenest regret; the possibility of
- the action contemplated I am sure all thoughtful Americans will look
- forward to with unaffected reluctance But we cannot forget that we are in
- some sort and by the force of circumstances the responsible spokesmen of
- the rights of humanity, and that we cannot remain silent while those
- rights seem in process of being swept utterly away in the maelstrom of
- this terrible war. We owe it to a due regard to our own rights as a nation,
- to our sense of duty as a representative of the rights of neutrals the
- world over, and to a just conception of the rights of mankind to take
- this stand now with the utmost solemnity and firmness....<P>
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