Wilmot Proviso

Wilmot Proviso, amendment attached to an appropriations bill adopted in 1846 by the U.S. House of Representatives, proposed by David Wilmot, a Democratic representative from Pennsylvania. At the conclusion of the Mexican War, President James Knox Polk requested from Congress the sum of $2 million in order to indemnify the Mexican government for territory annexed by the U.S. The Wilmot Proviso moved to exclude slavery from the acquired territory and was approved by the House on August 8, 1846. The U.S. Senate adjourned without considering the measure and, following a second approval by the House on February 1, 1847, the bill was rewritten by the Senate to exclude the amendment. Because it brought into sharp focus the differences then existing on the slavery question, the proviso was the subject of widespread controversy that resulted in increased hostility between the northern and southern states. The principle of the amendment became the basic policy of both the Free-Soil Party and the Republican Party.