Wilmot Proviso and Popular Sovereignty

The Wilmot Proviso was proposed as an amendment  in August of 1846 by David Wilmot and was one result of the Mexican-American War.  It stated that slavery should never exist in any territory gained from Mexico. The argument that the Wilmot Proviso proposes against slavery was a reiteration of other abolitionists before Wilmot. Though it was only passed in the House of Representatives, the South felt that the Wilmot Proviso was a threat to slavery for they believed that a threat to slavery anywhere is a threat to slavery everywhere. To the South, their livelihood was at stake. The idea the Wilmot Proviso proposed could be countered by  the idea of popular sovereignty, proposed by Lewis Cass of Michigan, that the people living in a territory could vote for slavery or against it.

These two opposing ideas created controversy for the North and the South by their contradictory ideals. The South supported in the idea popular sovereignty, which enabled the states to have an option of slavery in the new respective states. The North supported the rejected Wilmot Proviso with the intent of hurrying the progressive elimination of slavery from the states, urging it to die out, for many Northerners believed that slavery was wrong. The Wilmot Proviso brought out the beliefs and opinions of many people in and out of Congress about the slavery issue, while the idea of popular sovereignty controlled it and took it out of national politics.