The Wilmot Proviso (August 8, 1846)

Offered as an amendment to a $2 million appropriations bill to finance territorial negotiations with Mexico during the Mexican War:

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 first be duly convicted

Wilmot’s explanation in his 1848 speech to the House:

“I have no squeamish sensitiveness upon the subject of slavery, no morbid sympathy for the slave….I plead the cause and rights of white freemen….I would preserve for the free white labor a fair country, a rich inheritance, where the sons of toil, of my own race and own color, can live without disgrace which association with negro slavery brings upon free labor.”