The Wilmot Proviso

Tag Archive for: The Wilmot Proviso

Andrew Langer, Daily Essay 2013 4. The Classics that Inspired the Constitution, 13. Guest Constitutional Scholar Essayists, Andrew Langer, Dred Scott Decision, Speech on the Oregon Bill by Sen. John C. Calhoun, The Wilmot Proviso

Guest Essayist: Andrew Langer, President of the Institute for Liberty

Sometimes the smallest, most seemingly inconsequential events can have tremendous historical significance–a minor Central European Arch Duke’s assassination igniting World War I, for instance. So it is with The Wilmot Proviso, a 71-word, one paragraph bill in the US House of Representatives.

Introduced by Pennsylvania Congressman David Wilmot in 1846 as part of the debate on appropriations for the cessation of the Mexican-American War (and treaty negotiations), the Proviso would have banned slavery in any territories acquired from Mexico as a result of America’s victory in that war. Read more

April 26, 2013/1 Comment/by Janine Turner

The Wilmot Proviso – Reprinted from The U.S. Constitution, A Reader, Published by Hillsdale College

Classics that Inspired the Constitution, Daily Reading 2013, The Original Documents, The Wilmot Proviso 4. The Classics that Inspired the Constitution, The Wilmot Proviso

Early on in the Mexican-American War, America gained control over a vast swath of new territory extending from the Great Plains to the Pacific Ocean. In 1846, Congressman David Wilmot proposed a ban on slavery across the region, angering those who advocated on behalf of slavery’s westward expansion.

August 8, 1846

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 Read more

April 26, 2013/0 Comments/by Janine Turner