asked them to place two millions of dollars under his control, to be used
by him in the recess, if found practicable and expedient, in negotiating
a treaty of peace with Mexico, and acquiring some part of her territory.
A bill was duly gotten up for the purpose, and was progressing swimmingly
in the House of Representatives, when a member by the name of David
Wilmot, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, moved as an amendment, "Provided,
that in any territory thus acquired there never shall be slavery."

This is the origin of the far-famed Wilmot Proviso. It created a great
flutter; but it stuck like wax, was voted into the bill, and the bill
passed with it through the House. The Senate, however, adjourned without
final action on it, and so both appropriation and proviso were lost for
the time. The war continued, and at the next session the President
renewed his request for the appropriation, enlarging the amount, I think,
to three millions. Again came the proviso, and defeated the measure.
Congress adjourned again, and the war went on. In December, 1847, the new
Congress assembled. I was in the lower House that term. The Wilmot
Proviso, or the principle of it, was constantly coming up in some shape
or other, and I think I may venture to say I voted for it at least forty
times during the short time I was there. The Senate, however, held it in
check, and it never became a law. In the spring of 1848 a treaty of peace
was made with Mexico, by which we obtained that portion of her country
which now constitutes the Territories of New Mexico and Utah and the
present State of California. By this treaty the Wilmot Proviso was
defeated, in so far as it was intended to be a condition of the
acquisition of territory. Its friends, however, were still determined to
find some way to restrain slavery from getting into the new country. This
new acquisition lay directly west of our old purchase from France, and
extended west to the Pacific Ocean, and was so situated that if the
Missouri line should be extended straight west, the new country would be