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popular sovereignty
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popular sovereignty; U.S. presidential election of 1856
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popular sovereignty; U.S. presidential election of 1856
popular sovereignty; U.S. presidential election of 1856 A political cartoon critical of the Democratic Party's platform, which included support of “sqatter sovereignty” (popular sovereignty), during the U.S. presidential election of 1856.

popular sovereignty

historical United States political doctrine
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Also known as: squatter sovereignty
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Also called:
squatter sovereignty

popular sovereignty, in U.S. history, a controversial political doctrine according to which the people of federal territories should decide for themselves whether their territories would enter the Union as free or slave states. Its enemies, especially in New England, called it “squatter sovereignty.”

It was first applied in organizing the Utah and New Mexico territories in 1850. Its most crucial application came with the passage of U.S. Sen. Stephen A. Douglas’s Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which repealed the prohibition of slavery north of latitude 36°30′ (established in the Missouri Compromise of 1820). The violent struggle that followed for control of the Kansas Territory (see Bleeding Kansas) illustrated the failure of popular sovereignty as a possible ground for agreement between proslavery and antislavery factions in the country. See also Dred Scott decision.

The Editors of Encyclopaedia BritannicaThis article was most recently revised and updated by Brian Duignan.