Wilmot, << WIHL muht, >> David (1814-1868), a Pennsylvania Democrat, served in the United States House of Representatives from 1845 to 1851. In 1846, he sponsored the Wilmot Proviso, an amendment that would have forbidden slavery in territory that the United States gained from the Mexican War. He helped found the Republican Party in 1854, and was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1861 as a Republican. Wilmot was born in Bethany, Pennsylvania.
