sep 20, 1846 - Wilmot Proviso

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In 1846, President Polk requested a $2 million appropriations bill to negotiate a peace deal with Mexico. David Wilmot, Representative from PA, introduced an amendment "that slavery should never exist in any of the territory wrested from Mexico." The amendment passed twice in the House and never passed in the Senate. The Wilmot Proviso foreshadowed the intense and emotional disagreement between slave and free states over the territorial expansion of slavery into new territory.

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