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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 Kansas–Nebraska Act of 1854 called for popular sovereignty: the decision about slavery would be made by popular vote of the territory's settlers rather than by legislators in Washington, D.C. Existing sectional tensions surrounding slavery quickly found focus in Kansas. [5] [6]
Popular sovereignty is the principle that the leaders of a state and its government are created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political legitimacy. Popular sovereignty, being a principle, does not imply any particular political implementation.
There were, nonetheless, some slaves in most free states up to the 1840 census, and the Fugitive Slave Clause of the U.S. Constitution, as implemented by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, provided that a slave did not become free by entering a free state and must be returned to their owner. Enforcement of these ...
In 1846, northern Whigs crossed party lines to support a proposal by David Wilmot, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, to exclude slavery from all of the territory acquired from Mexico. The 1848 Democratic National Convention repudiated the Wilmot Proviso and nominated Lewis Cass for president on a platform endorsing popular sovereignty.
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 ...
But the Seven-Part Code implied that the territory was still under the sovereignty of the King and that the Juntas were only a temporary fix. [2] The principle of retroversion of sovereignty added the twist that, in such a case, sovereignty would return to the peoples, who would have a right to reject the authority of the king and appoint new ...