As one of the world's most powerful nations, the United States often takes the lead when it comes to international negotiations.

However, there's one little catch. In order for the U.S. to enter a treaty, Congress has to go along with the President. It's written in the Constitution, after all.

Although Woodrow Wilson presented the world with the idea for the League of Nations in his Fourteen Points speech, the United States never entered the league. Congress blocked ratification of the Treaty of Versailles.

Although the public largely supported World War I once America was in the thick of it, some leaders in the Senate were still isolationists. Henry Cabot Lodge, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, thought that the international council would usurp the U.S. government's ability to determine questions of war and peace. (Source)

Article 10 of the League of Nation's charter guaranteed that illegal invasions would be treated as attacks on the international community. Lodge thought this could compel the United States to go to war to protect another country. (Source)

Lodge's viewpoint held out; even with an amendment to the Treaty exempting the United States from Article 10, the measure failed to pass the Senate. For Wilson, it was a huge anticlimax to the preparations he undertook with the Inquiry.

Lodge and Congress were Lucy yanking the proverbial football from the rest of the world's Charlie Brown.