Popular Sovereignty

This term originated about the time of the acquisition of additional territory from Mexico in 1848. A suggestion was made of a middle course between the Wilmot Proviso, which prohibited the introduction of slavery into newly acquired or organized territories, and the positive permi ion of slavery under federal legislative enactment; namely, the question was to be settled by the inhabitants of the territories. The Kansas-Nebraska bill of 1854 purported to enforce the popular sovereignty idea. The Dred-Scott decision of 1857 decided against it. The Democratic National Convention of 1856 approved of non-interference by Congre with slavery in the Territories. Douglas, of Illinois, was an ardent advocate of this policy, and he vainly defended it against the Dred-Scott decision. The poplar sovereignty idea disappeared with the outbreak of the rebellion. It was called in derision ‘‘ squatter sovereignty.”