Declaration of War: The U.S. Enters World War I

On April 6, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson signed this joint resolution, ending America’s neutral stance on the ongoing global conflict – later deemed a “World War” – and formally declaring war against Imperial German Government.

Nearly three years earlier, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria had been assassinated by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. This triggered a series of conflicts that conflated into war across the European continent. The United States, however, sought to remain neutral through a policy of nonintervention.

In early 1917, that policy became unfeasible when Germany began attacking American ships, but President Wilson, who had campaigned on a platform of peace, remained hesitant to enter the fray. The final straw came when Great Britain shared the intercepted Zimmermann Telegram with the United States, revealing that Germany had promised American territory to Mexico in return for attacking the U.S. if it entered the war.

On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson made a special address before a joint session of Congress asking for a declaration of war against Germany. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives overwhelmingly voted in favor of going to war, and on April 6 President Wilson signed this formal war declaration, stating “that a state of war exists between the Imperial German Government and the Government and the people of the United States.”

In commemoration of the 100th anniversary of U.S. entry into World War I, this document was on display in the “Featured Documents” exhibit in the East Rotunda Gallery of the National Archives in Washington, DC, from April 4 through May 3, 2017.

Click here to download a high-resolution scan of the Joint Resolution of April 6, 1917, from the National Archives Catalog.

This “Featured Document” exhibit was made possible in part by the National Archives Foundation through the generous support of Ford Motor Company Fund.

Past Featured Records

Title IX
An Act of June 23, 1972, Public Law 92-318, 86 STAT 235, to Amend the Higher Education Act of 1965, the Vocational Educational Act of 1963, the General Education Provisions Act (Creating a National Foundation for Postsecondary Education and a National Institute of Education), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Public Law 874, Eighty-First Congress, and Related Acts, ...
Court-Martial record of Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin, March 10, 1778.
On March 10, 1778, Lieutenant Frederick Gotthold Enslin became the first U.S. soldier court-martialed for “attempting to commit sodomy” with another soldier. His sentence was to be literally drummed out of the Continental Army by its regiments’ fifes and drums. Enslin was told “never to return.” More than 230 years after Enslin’s court martial, gay men, lesbians, ...
Indictment for illegal voting, 1872
Susan B. Anthony devoted more than fifty years of her life to the cause of woman suffrage. After casting her ballot in the 1872 Presidential election in her hometown of Rochester, New York, she was arrested, indicted, tried, and convicted for voting illegally. At her two-day trial in June 1873, which she later described as "the greatest judicial outrage ...
Sylvia Mendez and the Struggle for Mexican American Civil Rights
Friday, September 13, 2024 - Wednesday, October 2, 2024East Rotunda Gallery Gonzalo and Felicitas Mendez moved to Orange County, California, with their children Sylvia, Gonzalo Jr., and Jerome in 1944. When they tried to enroll in the majority-white school near their home, they were instead sent to a segregated school for Hispanic students. The Mendez family filed a ...
A President Resigns – 50 Years Later
Thursday, August 1, 2024 - Thursday, September 12, 2024East Rotunda Gallery “I have never been a quitter. To leave office before my term is completed is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as President, I must put the interest of America first.” –Richard M. Nixon, August 8, 1974 During the night of June 17, 1972, five ...