Wilmot Proviso
1
Wilmot Proviso
The Wilmot Proviso, one of the major events leading to the American
Civil War, would have banned slavery in any territory to be acquired
from Mexico in the Mexican War or in the future, including the area
later known as the Mexican Cession, but which some proponents
construed to also include the disputed lands in south Texas and New
Mexico east of the Rio Grande.[1]
Congressman David Wilmot first introduced the Proviso in the United
States House of Representatives on August 8, 1846 as a rider on a
$2,000,000 appropriations bill intended for the final negotiations to
resolve the Mexican–American War. (In fact this was only three
months into the two-year war.) It passed the House but failed in the
Senate, where the South had greater representation. It was reintroduced
in February 1847 and again passed the House and failed in the Senate.
In 1848, an attempt to make it part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
also failed. Sectional conflict over slavery in the Southwest continued
up to the Compromise of 1850.
David Wilmot
Background
After an earlier failure to acquire Texas by treaty had failed to receive the necessary two-thirds approval of the
Senate, the United States annexed the Republic of Texas by a joint resolution of Congress that required simply a
majority vote in each house of Congress. President John Tyler signed the bill on March 1, 1845 on the last day of his
presidency. As many expected, the annexation led to war with Mexico. After the capture of New Mexico and
California in the first phases of the war, the political focus shifted to how much territory would be acquired from
Mexico. The key to this was the determination of the future status of slavery in any new territory.
Both major political parties had labored long to keep divisive slavery issues out of national politics. The Democrats
had generally been successful in portraying those within their party attempting to push a purely sectional issue as
extremists that were well outside the normal scope of traditional politics.[2] However, midway through Polk’s term,
Democratic dissatisfaction with the administration was growing within the Martin Van Buren, or Barnburner, wing
of the Democratic Party over other issues. Many felt that Van Buren had been unfairly denied the party’s nomination
in 1844 when southern delegates resurrected a convention rule, last used in 1832, requiring that the nominee had to
two-thirds of the delegate votes. Many in the North were also upset with the Walker tariff which reduced the tariff
rates; others were opposed to Polk’s veto of a popular river and harbor improvements bill, and still others were upset
over the Oregon settlement with Great Britain where it appeared that Polk did not pursue the northern territory with
the same vigor he used to acquire Texas. Polk was seen more and more as enforcing strict party loyalty primarily to
serve southern interests.[3]
Wilmot Proviso
2
The Whigs faced a different scenario. The victory of James K. Polk
(Democrat) over Henry Clay (Whig) in the 1844 presidential election
had caught the southern Whigs by surprise. The key element of this
defeat, which carried over into the congressional and local races in
1845 and 1846 throughout the South, was the party’s failure to take a
strong stand favoring Texas annexation. Southern Whigs were
reluctant to repeat their mistakes on Texas, but, at the same time,
Whigs from both sections realized that victory and territorial
acquisition would again bring out the issue of slavery and the
The Wilmot Proviso was seen as a stumbling
territories. In the South in particular, there was already the realization,
block for Presidential candidates, such as Taylor
or perhaps fear, that the old economic issues that had defined the
Second Party System were already dead. Their political goal was to avoid any sectional debate over slavery which
would expose the sectional divisions within the party.[4]
Introduction and debate on the proviso
On Saturday August 8, 1846 President Polk submitted to Congress a request for $2,000,000 in order to facilitate
negotiations with Mexico over the final settlement of the war. The request came with no public warning after Polk
had failed to arrange for approval of the bill with no Congressional debate. With Congress scheduled to adjourn that
Monday, Democratic leadership arranged for the bill to be immediately considered in a special night session. Debate
was to be limited to two hours with no individual speech to last more than ten minutes.[5]
David Wilmot, a Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, and a group of other Barnburner Democrats including
Preston King of New York, Hannibal Hamlin of Maine, Gideon Welles of Connecticut, and Jacob Brinkerhoff of
Ohio,[6] had already been meeting in early August strategy meetings. Wilmot had a strong record of supporting the
Polk administration and was close to many Southerners. With the likelihood that Wilmot would have no trouble
gaining the floor in the House debate, he was chosen to present the amendment to the appropriations bill that would
carry his name.[7] Wilmot offered the following to the House in language modeled after the Northwest Ordinance of
1787:
Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the
Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between
them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be
duly convicted.
William W. Wick, Democrat of Indiana, attempted to
eliminate total restriction of slavery by proposing an
amendment that the Missouri Compromise line of
latitude 36°30' simply be extended west to the Pacific.
This was voted down 89–54. The vote to add the
proviso to the bill was then called, and it passed by
83–64. A last-ditch effort by southerners to table the
entire bill was defeated by 94–78, and then the entire
bill was approved 85–80. Most ominously, these votes
all fell overwhelmingly along sectional rather than
party lines.[8]
Missouri Compromise Line. State boundaries are today's, not 1846's
Wilmot Proviso
3
The Senate took up the bill late in its Monday session. Democrats hoped to reject the Wilmot Proviso and send the
bill back to the House for a quick approval of the bill without the restrictions on slavery. Whig John Davis of
Massachusetts attempted to forestall this effort by holding the floor until it would be too late to return the bill to the
House, forcing the Senate to accept or reject the appropriation with the proviso intact. However, before he could call
the vote, due to an eight minute difference in the official House and Senate clocks, the House had adjourned and the
Congress was officially out of session.[9]
The issue resurfaced at the end of the year when Polk, in his annual message to Congress, renewed his request with
the amount needed increased to three million dollars. Polk argued that, while the original intent of the war had never
been to acquire territory (a view hotly contested by his opponents), an honorable peace required territorial
compensation to the United States.[10] The Three Million Dollar Bill, as it was called, was the sole item of business
in the House from February 8, 1847 until February 15. Preston King reintroduced the Wilmot Proviso, but this time
the exclusion of slavery was expanded beyond merely the Mexican territory to include "any territory on the continent
of America which shall hereafter be acquired". This time Representative Stephen Douglas, Democrat of Illinois,
reintroduced the proposal to simply extend the Missouri Compromise line to the west coast, and this was again
defeated 109–82. The Three Million Bill with the proviso was then passed by the House 115–106. In the Senate, led
by Thomas Hart Benton (Democrat), the bill was passed without the proviso. When the bill was returned to the
House the Senate bill prevailed; every Northern Whig still supported the proviso, but 22 northern Democrats voted
with the South.[11]
In 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ending the war was submitted to the Senate for approval. Douglas, now in
the Senate, was among those who joined with the South to defeat an effort to attach the Wilmot Proviso to the
treaty.[12] In the prior year's debate in the House Douglas had argued that all of the debate over slavery in the
territories was premature; the time to deal with that issue was when the territory was actually organized by
Congress.[13] Lewis Cass (Democrat) in December 1847, in his famous letter to A. O. P. Nicholson in Tennessee,
further defined the concept of popular sovereignty which would soon evolve as the mainstream Democratic
alternative to the Wilmot Proviso:
Leave it to the people, who will be affected by this question to adjust it upon their own responsibility,
and in their own manner, and we shall render another tribute to the original principles of our
government, and furnish another for its permanence and prosperity.[14]
Aftermath
With the approval of the treaty, the
issue moved from one of abstraction to
one involving practical matters. The
nature of the Constitution, slavery, the
value of free labor, political power,
and ultimately political realignment
were all involved in the debate.[15]
Historian Michael Morrison argues
that from 1820 to 1846 a combination
of "racism and veneration of the
Union" had prevented a direct northern
attack on slavery.[10] While the
original southern response to the
Wilmot Proviso was measured, it soon
An animation showing the free/slave status of U.S. states and territories, 1789–1861,
including the proposed Wilmot Proviso.
Wilmot Proviso
became clear to the South that this long postponed attack on slavery had finally occurred. Rather than simply the
politics of the issue, historian William Freehling noted, "Most Southerners raged primarily because David Wilmot’s
holier-than-thou stance was so insulting."[16]
In the North, the most immediate repercussions involved Martin Van Buren and the state of New York. The
Barnburners were successfully opposed by their conservative opposition, the Hunkers, in their efforts to send a
pro-proviso batch of delegates to the 1848 Democratic National Convention. The Barnburners held their own
separate convention and sent their own slate of delegates to the convention in Baltimore. Both delegations were
seated with the state's total votes split between them. When the convention rejected a pro-proviso plank[17] and
selected Lewis Cass as the nominee, the Barnburners again bolted and were the nucleus of forming the Free Soil
Party.[18] Historian Leonard Richards writes of these disaffected Democrats:
Overall, then, Southern Democrats during the 1840s lost the hard core of their original doughface
support. No longer could they count on New England and New York Democrats to provide them with
winning margins in the House. …
To them [Free Soil Democrats] the movement to acquire Texas, and the fight over the Wilmot Proviso,
marked the turning point, when aggressive slavemasters stole the heart and soul of the Democratic Party
and began dictating the course of the nation’s destiny.[19]
Historian William Cooper presents the exactly opposite southern perspective:
Southern Democrats, for whom slavery had always been central, had little difficulty in perceiving
exactly what the proviso meant for them and their party. In the first place the mere existence of the
proviso meant the sectional strains that had plagued the Whigs on Texas now beset the Democrats on
expansion, the issue the Democrats themselves had chosen as their own. The proviso also announced to
southerners that they had to face the challenge of certain northern Democrats who indicated their
unwillingness to follow any longer the southern lead on slavery. That circumstance struck at the very
roots of the southern conception of party. The southerners had always felt that their northern colleagues
must toe the southern line on all slavery-related issues.[20]
In Alabama, with no available candidate sufficiently opposed to the proviso, William L. Yancey secured the
adoption by the state Democratic convention of the so-called "Alabama Platform", which was endorsed by the
legislatures of Alabama and Georgia and by Democratic state conventions in Florida and Virginia. The platform
called for no Federal restrictions of slavery in the territories, no restrictions on slavery by territorial governments
until the point where they were drafting a state constitution in order to petition Congress for statehood, opposition to
any candidates supporting either the proviso or popular sovereignty, and positive federal legislation overruling
Mexican anti-slavery laws in the Mexican Cession. However the same Democratic Convention that had refused to
endorse the proviso also rejected incorporating the Yancey proposal into the national platform by a 216–36 vote.
Unlike the Barnburner walkout, however, only Yancey and one other Alabama delegate left the convention.
Yancey’s efforts to stir up a third party movement in the state failed.[21]
Southerner Whigs looked hopefully to slaveholder and war hero General Zachary Taylor as the solution to the
widening sectional divide even though he took no public stance on the Wilmot Proviso. However Taylor, once
nominated and elected, showed that he had his own plans. Taylor hoped to create a new non-partisan coalition that
would once again remove slavery from the national stage. He expected to be able to accomplish this by freezing
slavery at its 1849 boundaries and by immediately bypassing the territory stage and creating two new states out of
the Mexican Cession.[22]
The opening salvo in a new level of sectional conflict occurred on December 13, 1848 when John G. Palfrey (Whig)
of Massachusetts introduced a bill to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia. Throughout 1849 in the South "the
rhetoric of resistance to the North escalated and spread". The potentially secessionist Nashville Convention was
scheduled for June 1850.[23] When President Taylor in his December 1849 message to Congress urged the admission
of California as a free state, a state of crisis was further aggravated. Historian Allan Nevins sums up the situation
4
Wilmot Proviso
which had been created by the Wilmot Proviso:
Thus the contest was joined on the central issue which was to dominate all American history for the next
dozen years, the disposition of the Territories. Two sets of extremists had arisen: Northerners who
demanded no new slave territories under any circumstances, and Southerners who demanded free entry
for slavery into all territories, the penalty for denial to be secession. For the time being, moderates who
hoped to find a way of compromise and to repress the underlying issue of slavery itself – its toleration
or non-toleration by a great free Christian state – were overwhelmingly in the majority. But history
showed that in crises of this sort the two sets of extremists were almost certain to grow in power,
swallowing up more and more members of the conciliatory center.[24]
Combined with other slavery related issues, the Wilmot Proviso led to the Compromise of 1850, which helped buy
another shaky decade of peace. Radical secessionists were temporarily at bay as the Nashville Convention failed to
endorse secession. Moderates rallied around the Compromise as the final solution to the sectional issues involving
slavery and the territories. At the same time, however, the language of the Georgia Platform, widely accepted
throughout the South, made it clear that the South’s commitment to Union was not unqualified; they fully expected
the North to adhere to their part of the agreement.
Notes
[1] T. R. Fehrenbach (2000). Lone Star: a history of Texas and the Texans (http:/ / books. google. com/ books?id=z4x4xEZZ_xsC). Da Capo
Press. p. 273. ISBN 978-0-306-80942-2. .
[2] Silbey pg. 123
[3] Morrison p.42. Johannsen pg. 202. Potter pg. 22–29
[4] Cooper pg. 225–229.
[5] Potter pg. 18–19
[6] Earle pg. 233 fn. 1. Brinkerhoff is claimed by some historians to have been the actual author of the proviso.
[7] Silbey pg. 124. Potter pg. 21. Richards pg. 150. Fire-eater William L. Yancey (Democrat) in 1846 considered Wilmot as the one northerner
that could be trusted. Walther pg. 91
[8] Morrison pg. 41. Potter pg. 22. Richards pg. 152
[9] Potter pg. 22–23
[10] Morrison pg. 53
[11] Richards pg. 152–153. Johannsen pg. 204. Silbey pg. 130–131
[12] Unlike appropriations bills that constitutionally were required to be initiated in the House, since a treaty was involved the debate this time
would only involve the Senate.
[13] Johannsen pg. 216–217
[14] Johannsen pg. 227
[15] Holt pg. 50
[16] Freehling pg 461
[17] Political Party Platforms (http:/ / www. presidency. ucsb. edu/ showplatforms. php?platindex=D1848)
[18] Richards pg. 154–155
[19] Richards pg. 159
[20] Cooper pg. 233–234
[21] Walther p. 102–117. Niven pg. 314. South Carolina had boycotted the entire convention, but a single South Carolinian was admitted by the
convention as the state’s delegation, and he cast all nine of the state’s votes at the convention.
[22] Cooper pg. 243–245, 273–176
[23] Walther p. 118–122
[24] Nevins p. 12–13
5
Wilmot Proviso
Bibliography
• Berwanger, Eugene H. The Frontier Against Slavery: Western Anti-Negro Prejudice and the Slavery Extension
Controversy. (1967) ISBN 0-252-07056-9.
• Cooper, William J. Jr. The South and the Politics of Slavery 1828-1856. (1978) ISBN 0-8071-0775-1.
• Earle, Jonathan H. Jacksonian Antislavery & the Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854. (2004) ISBN 0-8078-2888-2.
• Foner, Eric. Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party Before the Civil War. (1970)
ISBN 0-19-509981-8.
• Freehling, William W. The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay 1776-1854. (1990) ISBN 0-19-505814-3.
• Holt, Michael F. The Political Crisis of the 1850s. (1978) ISBN 0-393-95370-X.
• Johnansen, Robert W. Stephen A. Douglas. (1973) ISBN 0-252-06635-9.
• Levine, Bruce. Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War. (1992) ISBN 0-8090-5352-7.
• McKnight, Brian D., article on Wilmot Proviso in "Encyclopedia of the American Civil War", edited by David S.
Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler, 2000, ISBN 0-393-04758-X.
• Morrison, Michael A. Slavery and the American West: The Eclipse of Manifest Destiny and the Coming of the
Civil War. (1997) ISBN 0-8078-2319-8.
• Nevins, Allan. Ordeal of the Union: Fruits of Manifest Destiny 1847-1852. (1947)
• Niven, John. John C. Calhoun and the Price of Union: A Biography. (1988) ISBN 0-8071-1451-0.
• Potter, David M. The Impending Crisis 1848-1861. (1976) ISBN 0-06-131929-5.
• Richards, Leonard L. The Slave Power and Southern Domination 1780-1860. (2000) ISBN 0-8071-2537-7.
• Silby, Joel H. Storm over Texas: The Annexation Controversy and the Road to the Civil War. (2005) ISBN
0-19-513944-5.
• Walther, Eric H. William Lowndes Yancey: The Coming of the Civil War. (2006) ISBN 0-8078-3027-5.
External links
• Wilmot Proviso (http://blueandgraytrail.com/event/Wilmot_Proviso)
•
"Wilmot Proviso". New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
6
Article Sources and Contributors
Article Sources and Contributors
Wilmot Proviso Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=519118207 Contributors: 1122334455, 5 albert square, ARUNKUMAR P.R, Alanscottwalker, Alansohn, Alex S,
AlexGWU, All13d, AnonMoos, BL Lacertae, Bagatelle, Bkonrad, Bob Burkhardt, Bsadowski1, Bulgaroctonus, CJLL Wright, Can't sleep, clown will eat me, Ccahill7, Chiefsfan4life, Chris the
speller, ChrisChantrill, Ciaccona, Civil Engineer III, Courcelles, Damirgraffiti, Danny, Davemcarlson, Davepape, DavidLevinson, Devina 94, Dino, Doctoroxenbriery, Dogposter, Fahmikhalid1,
Fat&Happy, Fingerz, Funnybunny, Gail, Georgethedecider, Gordonmiller, Hajatvrc, Hakufu Sonsaku, Hmains, I always forget, Ixfd64, J.delanoy, JWB, Jamesontai, Jengod, Jimmuldrow, Jj137,
John K, Jonathan Grynspan, Kenmayer, Kenyon, Kevin Myers, Kirby1056, Kondom69, Koyaanis Qatsi, KrazyCaley, Kubigula, LcawteHuggle, Lkjhgfdsa, Lradrama, Luk, Lyricmac,
MARKRULZ1, MIne84, Maccabee341, Mathwhiz 29, Matthew Yeager, Maximus Rex, Mbc362, Mcmillin24, Mcpierso, Meestaplu, Minesweeper, Mksmith, Monegasque, Monkee13,
Monkeyplus, MrNonchalant, Mstfmsgn, Mwanner, My76Strat, Myownworst, Nat682, Neptune5000, Neutrality, Nishkid64, North Shoreman, Nsevs, Oxymoron83, Philip Trueman, Piano non
troppo, Please Don't Block, Postdlf, Powelll16, R. fiend, RA0808, Raven1977, Razorflame, Res2216firestar, Rettetast, Reywas92, Rich Farmbrough, Rjwilmsi, Robert K S, Romanoff, Rror,
Rune.welsh, Ryanbrannonrulez, Ryuhaku, Shinmawa, Skomae, SoCalSuperEagle, SoWhy, Soliloquial, Sothicus, Swerdnaneb, Tainter, TeaDrinker, The Mystery Man, TheAllSeeingEye, Thingg,
Tomboy, Tressif, Triona, Versus22, Wayne Slam, Wikipelli, WillC, Wireless Keyboard, Woohookitty, Yachtsman1, Zro, Zucchinidreams, 397 anonymous edits
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors
Image:David Wilmot.png Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:David_Wilmot.png License: Public Domain Contributors: David Wilmot; scanned by Bob Burkhardt
Image:Whig harmony.jpg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Whig_harmony.jpg License: Public Domain Contributors: H. Bucholzer
Image:Missouri Compromise Line.svg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Missouri_Compromise_Line.svg License: GNU Free Documentation License Contributors:
Tintazul: Júlio Reis derivative work: JWB (talk)
Image:US Slave Free 1789-1861.gif Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:US_Slave_Free_1789-1861.gif License: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Contributors:
United_States_1789-03-1789-08.png: Made by User:Golbez. United_States_1800-07-04-1800-07-10.png: Made by User:Golbez. United_States_1821-07-1821-08.png: Made by User:Golbez.
United_States_1837-01-1837-03.png: Made by User:Golbez. United_States_1845-03-1845-12.png: Made by User:Golbez. United_States_1846-12-1848-02.png: Made by User:Golbez.
United_States_1858-1859.png: Made by User:Golbez. United_States_1861-01-1861-02-04.png: Made by User:Golbez. derivative work: Kenmayer (talk)
Image:wikisource-logo.svg Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Wikisource-logo.svg License: logo Contributors: Guillom, Jarekt, MichaelMaggs, NielsF, Rei-artur,
Rocket000
License
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
//creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
7