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David Wilmot proposed an amendment that stated that the territory from Mexico should remain slave-free. The language was borrowed from the Northwest Ordinance. All but one northern state legislature endorsed it. All southern legislatures condemned it (a sign of things to come???)
WILMOT PROVISO
"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 be first duly convicted."
House of Representatives voted 83 to 64 (reflecting that the House had far more northern representatives because the north has more population). But it did not pass the Senate where the Slave states still have parity.
This Wilmot Amendment never passed the Senatebecause the Southern members did not want to be robbed of possible slave states to arise in the future from the land gain in the Treaty of Guadalupe.
"I have no squeamish sensitiveness upon the subject of slavery nor no morbid sympathy for the slave. I plead the cause and rights of white freemen. I would preserve to free white labor a fair country, a rich inheritance, where the sons of toil of my own race and color can live without the disgrace which association with Negro slavery brings upon free labor."
Rep. David Wilmot
PLANS FOR THE WESTERN TERRITORIES
What kind of future will America have? Four plans are going to come together around this debate over slavery in the territories
#1 The Wilmot Proviso (a rally cry of the Free Soil Movement). David Wilmot proposed an amendment that stated that the territory from Mexico should remain slave-free. The language was borrowed from the Northwest Ordinance. All but one northern state legislature endorsed it. All southern legislatures condemned it (a sign of things to come???).
#2 State sovereignty (states' rights) The question of the individual's constitutional right of ownership in slaves as property and transport of slaves as property. State sovereignty, states' rights was indeed deeply at the root of the South's growing position here that, ultimately, no Federal Legislature, President--no Federal authority--existed to stop slavery's expansion.
#3 Popular sovereignty (a compromise position) not a new idea in the midst of the Mexican War and its aftermath – the idea that there would be no Act of Congress on slavery in the territories. Take Congress out of the story and simply let the people in the Western Territory have a vote. Let them have a referendum. Let there be popular democracy.
#4 Geographical division – Remember the Missouri Compromise of 1820 the 36º30' parallel from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean and slavery would never exist north of that line. The problem was that half of California was already north of that line.
5.6 The Rise and Fall of the Second Party System [1828 to 1854]
Disputes over slavery in the territories first erode, then destroy what had become America's second two-party system.
“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger and by what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect” — we here is this American nation — “Shall we expect some trans-Atlantic military giant to step over the ocean and crush us at a blow?” He answers, “Never. All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio River or make a track on the Blue Ridge Mountains, in a trial of 1000 years. If destruction is to be our lot we must ourselves be its author and its finisher. As a nation of free men we must live through all time or die by suicide.”
The Legacy of 1848 - What did the Mexican War Unleash
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