David Wilmot

This article is about the politician. For the actor of the same name, see David Wilmot (actor)

David Wilmot

David Wilmot (born January 20, 1814 in Bethany , Wayne County , Pennsylvania , † March 16, 1868 in Towanda , Bradford County , Pennsylvania) was an American politician . In the middle of the 19th century he represented the state of Pennsylvania in both chambers of the US Congress .

Career

David Wilmot attended public schools in his home country and a school in Aurora , New York State . After a subsequent law degree and his admission as a lawyer in 1834, he began to work in Towanda in his new profession. Politically, he initially joined the Democratic Party . In the congressional elections of 1844 , Wilmot was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC as his party's candidate in the twelfth constituency of his state . There he took up his new mandate on March 4, 1845. After two re-elections, he was able to complete three legislative terms in Congress by March 3, 1851. During this time the Mexican-American War fell . Wilmot was an opponent of slavery . As such, he brought the Wilmot Proviso, named after him, to Congress in 1846 , but it was never passed. In 1850 he renounced another candidacy. Between 1851 and 1861 he was a judge in the thirteenth judicial district of his state.

In the meantime he had become a member of the Free Soil Party . In the 1850s, David Wilmot joined the newly formed Republican Party . In Pennsylvania he was one of its founders. He was a delegate at the Republican National Conventions of 1856 and 1860 at which John C. Frémont and Abraham Lincoln were nominated as presidential candidates of the party that Wilmot also supported. After Lincoln's election victory, he was offered a ministerial position in his cabinet, which he refused. In the spring of 1861 he was a member of a negotiating commission that unsuccessfully sought to prevent the outbreak of the American Civil War in the federal capital, Washington .

After the appointment of Simon Cameron as the new Secretary of War in the Lincoln Administration, he had to give up his previous office as US Senator. Thereupon David Wilmot was elected as his successor to the US Senate , where he took up his new mandate on March 14, 1861. By March 3, 1863, he ended the current legislative period of his predecessor. This time was marked by the events of the civil war. After his tenure in Congress ended, Wilmot was appointed a judge on the United States Court of Claims by President Lincoln . He held this office until his death on March 16, 1868.

Web links

Commons : David Wilmot  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: The New International Encyclopædia - Wilmot, David  - Sources and full texts (English)

• David Wilmot in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)

• David Wilmot in the database of Find a Grave (English)