USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -popular sovereignty, also called squatter 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.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed the Missouri Compromise, created two new territories, and allowed for popular sovereignty. It also produced a violent uprising known as “Bleeding Kansas, ” as proslavery and antislavery activists flooded into the territories to sway the vote.

Detailed explanation-3: -The idea of popular sovereignty as it pertains to the extension of slavery to the territories in the antebellum era was a political concept that allowed the residents of the territories themselves, rather than Congress, to determine whether to permit or prohibit slavery.

Detailed explanation-4: -First promoted in the 1840s in response to debates over western expansion, popular sovereignty argued that in a democracy, residents of a territory, and not the federal government, should be allowed to decide on slavery within their borders.

Detailed explanation-5: -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).