Doing Research on David Wilmot

    Today, I did research for a project in my first year seminar class. In this project, each individual in the class is assigned a famous American Activist, either pro slavery, or anti slavery. The class will enact a modern day debate as to what they think about slavery, impersonating their assigned person. My assigned person was David Wilmot.

    Born on January 20th, 1814, in Bethany Pennsylvania, Wilmot grew up to get an education in Read Law. From there, he worked as a United States Representative and furthermore, a United States Senator. David was appointed by Abraham Lincoln to this position. He worked as a senator from March 14th, 1861 through March 3rd, 1863. As a senator, he also worked as a representative from 1845 through 1851. 

    Wilmot was best known as the prime sponsor of the Wilmot Proviso Proposal, which ultimately ended up failing. The proposal was to ban the expansion of slavery to Western Lands. Though this proposal failed, he was a member of the anti slavery organization, the Free Soil Party. He then ended up establishing the Republican party. 

One of his most famous quotes, "The unproductive tillage of human cattle takes that which of  right belongs to free labor, and which is necessary for the support and happiness of our own race. 

David Wilmot (U.S. National Park Service)

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