THE QUARTERLY
of the
Oregon Historical Society
VOLUME XV SEPTEMBER, 1914 NUMBER 3
The Quarterly disavows responsibility for the positions taken by contributors to its pages
THE "BARGAIN OF 1844" AS THE ORIGIN OF THE WILMOT PROVISO*
By Clark E. Persinger
Professor of American History in the University of Nebraska
[This paper reveals the fact that the proposed accessions of the whole of Oregon and of Texas were combined by the "Bargain of 1844" to make a Democratic party campaign issue and means of "party harmony and unity."—Editor Quarterly.]
Why did the Northern Democracy so suddenly present that "apple of discord" 1—the Wilmot proviso to the Southern Democracy in August of 1846?
Von Hoist answers this question with the rather vague assertion that the "vox populi of the North" compelled the politicians to take some action against the proposed increase of slave soil through the proposed Mexican cession. 2 Wilson in his "Slave Power" attributes the proviso to "several Dem- ocratic members" of Congress, who had been "cajoled into a vote for [Texan] annexation," and now, unable to retrieve the past, sought in this way "to save the future." 3 Schouler makes no assertion as to its origin. Garrison in his volume of the American Nation series contents himself with the state- ment: "The circumstances of its origin suggest, if no more, that its introduction was simply a maneuver for political ad- vantage in a family quarrel among the Democrats." 4
- Read before the annual meeting of the American Historical Association,
December, 1911. Reprinted from the Annual Reports of that association for 1911, pp. 187–195.
i Calhoun to Coryell, Nov. 7, 1846. Jameson, "Corresp. of Calhoun," 710. 2, Von Hoist "Const. Hist, of the United States" (Lalor's transl.), II, 306.
3 Von Hoist, II, 15-16.
4 "Westward Extension." Amer. Nation series, XVII, 355.