Popular+Sovereignty

=Popular Sovereignty= toc Popular Sovereignty was the statement that proclaimed that the settlers in Federal Territories could decide whether their state was a slave or anti-slave state. The doctrine was exposed in the late 1840s, and was first proposed by Vice President George Dallas in 1847. Stephan A. Douglas, a democratic lawyer in Jackson, Illinois, thought that the people should vote on it early in the growing of the states, but others differed, saying that they should take the vote when the state was in its full size. Popular Sovereignty was also known as the "squatter sovereignty" by many New Englanders and Southerners who wanted slavery.

Compromises
Congress tried to promote compromises to quiet the arguments that were going on about slavery. Popular sovereignty seemed to quiet the people temporary so that Congress could find a better solution to the problem. The Missouri Compromise pleased the North more than the South. The Compromise o

Missouri Compromise
The compromise was an act to stop all the arguments on whether there should be an extention of slavery or not. The problem was that it was in the North, but most of the population was pro-slavery. There had to be an equal amount of slave and non-slave states, and Missouri was the odd one out. One bill proposed that there shall not be anymore slavery across the rest of the Louisiana Purchase land, but it didn't pass. Maine was finally admitted as a state by the Union in 1820, solving the problem. Maine would become a free state, and Missouri would be a slave state.

Compromise of 1850
After President Zachary Taylor fell sick and died, his Vice President, Fillmore became the President. He liked Henry Clay's plan because it had benefits for both the North and the South. The Northern benefits were that California would become a free state, and there would be no more slave trade in Washington D.C. The Southern benefits were that the Utah and New Mexico areas would be ruled by popular sovereignty, and The Fugative Slave Act would be passed. The Fugative Slave Act stated that if any Southern slave escaped to the North, the Northerners would be responsible for returning the slave back to the South. The Compromise of 1850 did not solve most of the slavery problems, but it muted most of the arguments amongst the people.

Why they did not work
Even after all the the compromises that were made, people were still against slavery, or for it. Stephan A. Douglas wanted to bring more slavery to the Kansas and Nebraska terrritories, and since he believed in popular sovereignty, he tried to pass the Kansas-Nebraska Act. The Northerners were mad because it was violating the the Missouri Compromise. So both parties tried to move as many people as possible from both sides to decide the election. There continued to be rising tension between both sides, and it erupted into violence. This era was called "Bleeding Kansas" because the North and South fought each other for what they thought was fair. This was one of the minor violences foreshadowing the Civil War.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act
The Kansas-Nabraska Act was a bill that established the lines of territory for Kansas and Nebraska. Since the land was expanding so much in the west, there were arguments as to whether there should be slavery in any of the two states, and if there was, then which one. The Act repealed the Missouri Compromise that prohibited slavery above the 36 degrees 30 latitude, and that made a lot of Northerners very angry. After the Act was passed, people from both sides of the argument, the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery people, rushed to Kansas hoping to make a difference in the election on whether to make Kansas a slavery or non-slavery state. Violence soon turned up and Kansas was unadmitted as a state until right before the Civil War.

Popular Sovereignty seemed to be solving and disrupting many arguments. It was fair that the PEOPLE got to choose whether there was slavery or not, but it became violent in the West. "Bleeding Kansas" proved that people would go to all costs to protect what they thought was fair. It was one of many battles that would lead up to the Civil War.

Picture References
[|http://housedivided.dickinson.edu/main/file]__ s/images/HD_douglasSA2.jpg __

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