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To some moderates, slavery in the territories was not a matter for Congress to resolve; they argued that the people in each territory, like those in each American state, were the sovereigns thereof and should determine the status of slavery. [11] Popular sovereignty became part of the rhetoric for leaving to residents of the new American ...
The book condemned slavery, but "not with reference, except in a very slight degree, to its humanitarian or religious aspects," which had already been dealt with at length by Northern writers. [ 1 ] : v Instead, Helper criticized slavery on economic grounds, appealing to whites' rational self-interest , rather than "any special friendliness or ...
Stephen Arnold Douglas (né Douglass; April 23, 1813 – June 3, 1861) was an American politician and lawyer from Illinois.A U.S. senator, he was one of two nominees of the badly split Democratic Party to run for president in the 1860 presidential election, which was won by Republican candidate Abraham Lincoln.
Since there were no slave patrols or laws protecting slavery in the territory, slave escapes were quite common. Ultimately, California decided to ban slavery in their 1849 constitution and was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1850. Nevada would never have legal slavery and was admitted to the Union as a free state in 1864.
Popular sovereignty in its modern sense is an idea that dates to the social contract school represented by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), John Locke (1632–1704), and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778). Rousseau authored a book titled The Social Contract, a prominent political work that highlighted the idea of the "general will".
Douglas had long advocated popular sovereignty, under which the settlers in each new territory would decide their own status as a slave or free state; he had repeatedly asserted that the proper application of popular sovereignty would prevent slavery-induced conflict and would allow Northern and Southern states to resume their peaceful coexistence.
By taking this position, Douglas was defending his popular sovereignty or "Squatter Sovereignty" principle of 1854, which he considered to be a compromise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery positions. It was satisfactory to the legislature of Illinois, which reelected Douglas over Lincoln to the Senate. However, the Freeport Doctrine, or ...
In 1854, the Kansas–Nebraska Act reversed long-standing compromises by providing that each new state of the Union would decide its posture on slavery (popular sovereignty). The newly formed Republican Party stood against the expansion of slavery and won control of most Northern states (with enough electoral votes to win the presidency in 1860).