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.