The Wilmot Proviso: After The Mexican War

Southern territorial tensions linked to slavery in the mid 1800's. (Doc D) Opposition to annexation of Texas occurred because of avoidance to the problem of Texas being a free or slave state. The Wilmot Proviso provoked huge controversy about the status of the land gained after the Mexican War, the bill would be called upon and debated on furiously for decades to come. Popular sovereignty began to appear in some alternate plans for deciding slavery in the Louisiana Territory. Polk's plan, which proposed to extend the slavery line in the Missouri Compromise to the pacific, aroused further debates for the North and the South. California and New Mexico raised even more questions about the implementation of

He was a strong believer in popular sovereignity. Since he felt so strongly about it, he agreed that popular sovereignity would decide whether or not Kansas and Nebraska would be free states or slave states. This decision caused a huge disagreement between the North and South because this would allow slavery north of the Mason-Dixon dividing line created in the Missouri Compromise. The president at the time, Franklin Pierce, supported Douglas’ bill and passed it on May 30th, 1854.

Representative David Wilmot of Pennsylvania, an antislavery Democrat, introduced an amendment to the appropriation bill prohibiting slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico. The Wilmot Proviso passed the house but failed in the senate. Southern militants in the meantime contended that all Americans had equal rights in the new territories, including the right to move their slaves. The northwest sold most of its products to the residents of the northeast and was thus depended on eastern purchasing power. Eastern industry found an important market for its products in the west. STRONG ECONONOMIC RELATIONSHIP was emerging that was profitable to both-- and that was increasing the isolation of the south within the

The Manifest Destiny beliefs clearly explained how Texas annexation was a natural expansion of the United States-a logical sequel to the Louisiana Purchase. Controversy arose from the annexation of a huge section of Mexico and the fears these lands meant the expansion of slavery. John Quincy Adams, a member of the House of Representatives, stated, "We hesitate not to say that annexation of Texas, effected by any act or proceeding of the Federal Government, or any of its departments, would be identical with dissolution. It would be a violation of our national compact, its objects, designs, and the great elementary principles with entered into its formation, of a character so deep and fundamental, and would be an attempt to authorize an institution and a power of a nature so unjust in themselves, so injurious to the interests and abhorrent to the feelings of the people of the Free States, as, in our opinion, not only inevitably to result in a dissolution of the Union, but fully to justify it; and we not only assert that the people of the Free States 'ought not to submit to it,' but

Four years after the Wilmot Proviso was denied of passage in the Senate, Southerner, John C Calhoun delivered a speech to congress. Calhoun spoke to congress about the addition of California to the US. Because of values of Manifest Destiny, it was in a way a dream of the US to add California. However, according to Calhoun, it had be a slave state. He wanted this because he was a southerner and the more slave states there were, the better. Also, as he says in source B, that if t California was to be added as a free state, then the balance, or “equilibrium”, would be thrown off in the Union. There would be more free states than slave states. In order to keep the balance, he advocated California to be a slave state. Conflicts between parts of government over slavery, like Wilmot and Calhoun, only continued the schism in the nation and set the US on the path of the Civil War.

Though members of the house tried to pass the Wilmot proviso, which would ban slavery in newly acquired Mexican territories, Southerners naturally opposed this. Disagreements over how to decide the newly acquired land’s position on slavery, further intensified sectionalism between the North and South. At one point the South even tried to pass the Ostend Manifesto in an attempt to purchase Cuba from Spain, and admit it into the Union as a slave state. Although this effort failed, it strongly represents the intense sectionalism during the time: As an entire portion of the country acted autonomously to secure an additional state to gain power over their Northern neighbors. Finally, the compromise of 1850 was passed, declaring popular sovereignty as the determining factor of the position of slavery among the land

Polk immediately asked for funding from Congress, and they approved under the Wilmot Proviso; it stated that the war would receive funding but there would be no slavery in the southwest. Polk longed to finish the war quickly so the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was passed. It stated that Rio Grande was Texas’s southern border. Also, it gave the United States control of modern day Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, and most of New Mexico and Arizona, but the United States had to pay fifteen million dollars in return.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, in Document C, that “the United States will conquer Mexico, but it will be as the man swallows the arsenic.” This statement points out a key similarity between this war and the Civil War- both were tainted by slavery. The Mexican War would result in new slave states, making abolitionists angry, resulting in the conflicts that started the Civil War. Document D, written by David Wilmot of the Wilmot Proviso, reveals the tensions created by the Mexican cession, saying, “I ask not that slavery be abolished, I demand that this government preserve the integrity of free territory against the aggressions of slavery-against its wrongful usurpations.” Up until that point, there were an equal number of slave and free states. How would the balance be maintained? Wilmot suggested that slavery remain only in the current slave states and not spread to any new territories. However, his plan was rejected, showing that neither side would compromise, but, instead, that the Union would break apart. Therefore, the Compromise of 1850 was passed as a way to appease the north and the south. Document E shows the distinct separation of slave and free states resultant of this compromise. This reveals a major breakup of the Union over slavery. Document F points out the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, created by Stephen Douglas, which divided the newly gained Nebraska Territory into two states, Kansas and Nebraska, and

Potter argues there are four basic position held by politicians of free and slave states in their views on solving the territorial issue. The first was David Wilmot’s, “that Congress possessed power to regulate slavery in the territories and should use it for the total exclusion of the institution.” The second proposal was to extend the 36 degree Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific, allowing slavery south of this line. The Third, known as the popular sovereignty proposal, is where the territorial government, not Congress, possesses the control over the decisions on slavery in the territory. The fourth, contends “that

In 1846 throughout 1848, a war to conquer land from Mexico were orders held by James K. Polk. An unjust war is about to occur, In 1846 Texas becomes Independent from Mexico and the United States. To begin with, Mexico approves for the Americans to settle onto Texas with one condition to not bring slaves along with them. During this time period, slavery was one of the most important political concerns and they opposed slavery. The Americans didn’t hold the values of anti-slavery, during this time they valued Manifest Density strongly. Accepting some restrictions from Mexico placed was nothing compared to its own destiny to occur from preventing America to stretch outward towards the Pacific Ocean. The main conflict started with the annexation of Texas, a dispute on the nation’s border, the Mexicans consider the Nueces river to be the border of Texas as for Americans that wasn’t enough land so they consider, Rio Grande the border. A way to aim to

Finally, the social issues in the United States brought about by westward expansion really contributed to start of the Civil War. Proposed in 1846 by David Wilmot, The Wilmot Proviso was a proposition by abolitionists that proposed that there should be no slavery in any of the land included in the Mexican Secession. This was a bold move by the northern abolitionists, and though this wasn’t passed, it showed that the slavery issue was at the forefront of social issues on the western frontier. It was a

As a result of the Compromise of 1850, California was admitted as a free state, the territory disputed between Texas and New Mexico was surrendered to New Mexico, the slave trade was abolished in the District of Columbia, the Mexican Cession was open to popular sovereignty, and a stronger Fugitive Slave Law was enacted. In a speech to the Senate on March 7, 1850, Senator Daniel Webster stated his opinion that the North is wrong for not obeying the Fugitive Slave Law and that succession is amiss [Document D].The tone of Webster’s speech is objective as he attempts to see both sides- the North and the South. Webster is unbiased because as a Northern man, he agrees with the South. The peace was only temporary. The Fugitive Slave Law upset Northerners and the Underground Railroad became more active, peaking between 1850 and 1860. Massachusetts went so far as to making it a penal offense for a state official to enforce the act. The act also brought the issue of slavery into the limelight before the entire nation. In fact, by 1858, there was no avoiding the subject of slavery. During the Lincoln-Douglass Debates in a speech at Alton, Illinois on October 15, 1858, Abraham Lincoln stated that slavery was no longer just a political issue [Document G]. Slavery was splitting the nation and during the Second Great Awakening, even churches split over the issue. Lincoln’s speech is

The underlying conflicts between North and South were finally fully exposed as a result of failure of compromise in the political arena. The failure of American leadership in 1846-1861was epitomised by key events such as; Douglas's Kansas Nebraska act of 1854 and the dread Scott case pronouncement of 1857. Both of these events overturned the previous Missouri compromise and thus once again brought the two opposing nations head to head. The Wilmot proviso bill which proposed to eliminate slavery in the territories was a clear signal to the South that the North was plotting against her way of life. Thus the southern mind set became increasingly locked in a persecution complex which they justified by evidence of a ‘Northern conspiracy' to destroy their economic institution, the Wilmot proviso was one such piece of evidence even though it was not passed. The election of Lincoln was the final straw with which the south believed the northern conspirators would gain the upper hand and bring about the destruction of the Southern institutions. "Most irresponsible, wanton, and disastrous of all was the decision of those southern leaders who in 1858-1860 turned to the provocative demand for Congressional protection of slavery in all the territories of the Republic." Allan Nevins. Nevins in the previous quote demonstrates the reckless extent

In efforts to better understand the Civil War most historians examine the Sectional Crisis and the Compromise of 1850 in the decades leading up to the worst years in American History. Some historians prefer to focus on the underlying theme of the war, others tightly examine individual leaders, events, and political parties, connecting them all together like puzzle pieces to define the years prior to the war. Despite the contrasting views, it is clear to realize the constant prevailing issues of the Antebellum Period, the Sectional Crisis and the Compromise of 1850. In particular, the Compromise of 1850 is deceivingly taught as only establishing 3 pivotal elements: the status of slavery in future territories (popular sovereignty), California statehood, and the fugitive slave law. Granted these elements of the compromise provide a great amount of controversy long after their birth, but one element of the compromise perceives to fail in obtaining recognition. The Texas-New Mexico boundary resolution seems to find itself fading away from its relevancy to the civil war, shadowed by more prominent issues regarding the stability of the Union. Abandoning the traditional teaching of the compromise, the Texas-New Mexico border decision figuratively and literally changed the identity of Texas. This was the long awaited result caused by deep rooted social and political issues dating back to the Texas Revolution.

As America began to expand, first with the lands gained from the Louisiana Purchase and later with the Mexican War, the question of whether new states admitted to the union would be slave or free. The Missouri Compromise passed in 1820 made a rule that prohibited slavery in states from the former Louisiana Purchase the latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes north except in Missouri. During the Mexican War, conflict started about what would happen with the new territories that the US expected to gain upon victory. David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso in 1846 which would ban slavery in the new lands. However, this was shot down to much debate. The Compromise of 1850 was created by Henry Clay and others to deal with the balance between slave and free states, northern and southern interests. One of the provisions was the fugitive slave act that was discussed in number one above. Another issue that further increased tensions was the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. It created two new territories that would allow the states to use popular sovereignty to determine whether they would be free or slave. The real issue occurred in Kansas where proslavery Missourians