Wilmot Proviso

(1846) Proposal in the U.S. Congress to prohibit the extension of slavery to the territories.

Offered by Rep. David Wilmot (1814–68) as an amendment to a bill that purchased territory from Mexico, it prohibited slavery in the new territory. The proviso provoked a national debate that reflected the growing sectional discord between North and South. Despite repeated attempts, the Wilmot Proviso was never passed by both houses of Congress. Nevertheless, the principle became a basic tenet of the Republican Party.

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▪ United States history

      in U.S. history, important congressional proposal in the 1840s to prohibit the extension of slavery into the territories, a basic plank upon which the Republican Party was subsequently built. Soon after the Mexican War, Pres. James K. Polk asked Congress for $2,000,000 to negotiate peace and settle the boundary with Mexico. In behalf of anti-slavery forces throughout the country, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania named David Wilmot offered an amendment (Aug. 8, 1846) to the bill forbidding slavery in the new territory, thus precipitating bitter national debate in an atmosphere of heightening sectional conflict. Despite repeated attempts, the Wilmot Proviso was never passed by both houses of Congress. But out of the attempt by both Democrats and Whigs to subordinate or compromise the slavery issue grew the Republican Party, founded in 1854, which specifically supported the Wilmot principle.

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