What I Think

i think you have 2 key mistakes in your essay. First of all, you put that "Herbet Hoover, for one, believed that the treaty was too harsh, and urged Wilson to accept the reservations that the Senate had made." But the fact is Wilson did not want a treaty that harsh it was that he was not in a great bargaining position for the treaty especially since his party lost the majority during the Congressional Elections. Wilson wanted to promote his 14 points for the reconstruction of Europe but he compromised all of them in order to get the League of Nations through in the Treaty of Versaille. Most of the opposition also did not oppose the treaty; they mainly opposed article ten of the "Constitution" of the League of Nations. If my memory is correct, it stated that the nations in the League has to help any nations during armed conflict if it voted to do so. Congress, being the greedy Congress it has always been, did not want to give up the rights guaranteed to them through the Constitution to make war on other countries. They did not want to be forced into any armed conflicts without their agreement. Wilson pointed out that US would have the power to veto against anything they didn't like but Congress stated that other nations will press US to vote for an issue. Thus, they could not accept the Treaty of Versaille with the League of Nations. They tried to amend mainly the League of Nations.

Secondly, you stated that "By holding off the vote and making his own reservations to the treaty, Lodge knew that he was using Wilson's hatred to his advantage", but that was not the real reason Lodge held off the vote. Lodge knew that if the vote occurred right after the war, there will be a general craze for helping Europe out so Congress would easily vote for the Treaty. Thus, they decided to delay the voting by reading out loud in Congress all 100+ pages of the treaty (the reading and debates lasted a few months). They were extremely successful in their