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History and Government—Congressional Biographies—PennsylvaniaDavid WILMOT
(1814-1868)
Senate Years of Service:
1861-1863Party: RepublicanWILMOT, David, a
Representative and a Senator from Pennsylvania; born in Bethany,
Pa., January 20, 1814; completed preparatory studies in the academy
at Aurora, N.Y.; studied law; admitted to the bar of Bradford
County, Pa., in 1834 and commenced practice in Towanda, Bradford
County, Pa.; elected as a Democrat to the Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth,
and Thirty-first Congresses (March 4, 1845-March 3, 1851); was not
a candidate for renomination in 1850; was the author of the
‘Wilmot Proviso’ relative to slavery in newly annexed
territory; took a leading part in the founding of the Republican
Party in 1854; presiding judge of the thirteenth judicial district
1851-1861; unsuccessful Republican candidate for governor of
Pennsylvania in 1857; elected as a Republican to the United States
Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Simon
Cameron and served from March 14, 1861, to March 3, 1863; was not a
candidate for reelection in 1862; member of the peace convention of
1861, held in Washington, D.C., in an effort to devise means to
prevent the impending war; appointed by President Abraham Lincoln a
judge of the United States Court of Claims in 1863 and served until
his death in Towanda, Pa., March 16, 1868; interment in Riverside
Cemetery.
Bibliography
Dictionary of American Biography; Duff, James H.
“David Wilmot, the Statesman and Political Leader.”
Pennsylvania History 13 (October 1946): 283-89; Going,
Charles. David Wilmot, Free-Soiler: A Biography of the Great
Advocate of the Wilmot Proviso. 1924. Reprint. Gloucester,
Mass.: P. Smith, 1966.
Source: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1771-Present
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