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.