The New International Encyclopædia/Wilmot Proviso
WILMOT PROVISO. The name applied to
an amendment proposed in the United States
Congress in 1840 by David Wilmot (q.v.), a
Democratic Representative from Pennsylvania, to
a bill appropriating money for the purchase of
territory from Mexico. On August 8, 1846, President
Polk sent to Congress a special message
asking that body to appropriate money to be
used in adjusting the boundary dispute between
the United States and Mexico. In response a bill
appropriating $2,000,000 was introduced in the
House, and it was expected that the money would
be used in buying the Mexican claims to the
disputed territory. In the debate that followed,
Wilmot moved an amendment which
provided “that 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.” This amendment
was adopted in the House by a vote of 83
to 64, and the entire bill was then passed.
When it was taken up in the Senate, however,
Lewis, of Alabama, moved to strike out the
proviso; but Davis, of Massachusetts, spoke
against the motion, and continued his opposition
until Congress adjourned. In the following
December the President again asked for the measure,
and, as most of the Northern State Legislatures
had declared in favor of it, bills were soon
reported in both Houses. On February 8, 1847,
Wilmot again moved his proviso to one of these
bills (appropriating $3,000,000 instead of the
original $2,000,000), and it was again adopted,
on February 15th, by a vote of 115 to 106.
Meanwhile, however, the Democratic Senate had
passed a similar bill without the proviso, and
this bill came up before the House. That body in
committee of the whole voted to amend the
Senate bill by adding the proviso, but the
proviso was rejected by the Senate and the bill was
finally passed without it.

In the contest the pro-slavery men had naturally
fought the proviso, and in the effort to
preserve harmony between the Northern and
Southern wings of their party the Democrats
were forced to evolve the doctrine of popular

sovereignty (q.v.). Those who, like Wilmot,
were unwilling to accept this doctrine split off
from the party. The principle contained in the
proviso continued to be a burning issue even
after its temporary rejection. Attempts were
made to apply the principle in organizing the
territory that was acquired from Mexico, and
it formed the basis, in part, of the Free-Soil
Party, and later of the Republican
Party. It was rejected in the Compromise of
1850, and its previous application in the
../Missouri Compromise/ (q.v.) of 1820 was wiped out
by the Kansas-Nebraska bill (q.v.) of 1854; and
in the famous case of Dred Scott it was held to
be out of harmony with the Constitution.
Ultimately, however, it was established by the act
of June 19, 1862, which forbade slavery in
“any of the territories of the United States now
existing, or which may at any time hereafter be
acquired.” Consult: Wilson, Rise and Fall
of the Slave Power (Boston, 1872-77);
Schouler, History of the United States of America
Under the Constitution (New York, new
ed. 1899); Von Holst, Constitutional and
Political History of the United States (Chicago,
new ed. 1899); and Stephens, Constitutional
View of the Late War Between the States
(Philadelphia, 1868-70).