popular sovereignty?

Question

what did the northerners (the free states) think of popular sovereignty and what was the reason (if there was) the southerners (the slave states) opposed their ideas?
thanks

Answer 1

Your question seems to suggest that Northerners generally FAVORED "popular sovereignty", while Southerners tended to oppose it. Well it didn't quite start out that way!

In fact, initially Southerners LIKED the idea -- that residents of a territory (not yet a state), RATHER than Congress, could decide whether or not they wanted slavery in the territory. This view was put forward by Lewis Cass as the Democrats' Presidential candidate in 1848, as a counter to the position of Northern "Free Soilers" who wanted to BAN slavery in the territories, via the Wilmot Proviso. (This debate all came as a result of the territories the U.S. had gained in the Mexican War.)

Only later did they decide this view did not provide enough protection for slavery, esp. when Stephen Douglass, a major proponent of the idea (so much so that many thought he had invented it), continued to advocate it in the form of the "Freeport Doctrine", which insisted that residents of a territory ALSO had the right to decide AGAINST slavery. (He laid this out in response to Lincoln in their 1858 debates.)

But by this time the South could see from the struggles in Kansas that the popular sovereignty position might not easily resolve things in their favor (certainly not if a lot of Northern Free Soilers came to settle the territories!) And the Dred Scott decision (1857) had essentially ruled that slavery could NOT be kept out of the territories.

As a result in the late 1840s to EARLY 1850s Southerners espoused the 'popular sovereignty' view (also, perhaps more accurately, called "squatters' sovereignty"), but just a few years later they were opposing it, leaving only Northern Democrats advocating the position (which Free Soilers, by now in the Republican Party --partly FORMED over this issue in 1854-- had always opposed).

Incidentally, the understanding prior to the Mexican War had been that this, like all other territorial matters was under the jurisdiction of CONGRESS. Only upon becoming a state could residents of an area vote on the issue for themselves. There were also strong precedents in the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 (which had banned slavery in that region), and such legislation as the "Missouri Compromise".

http://skyways.lib.ks.us/genweb/archives/1912/s/squatter_sovereignty.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popular_sovereignty
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_A._Douglas#Kansas-Nebraska_1854
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeport_Doctrine

Answer 2

Popular sovereignty means that the people living in that area should choose wither they were a free or slave state. Southerners were afraid of this mostly because only those owning plantations really had any need for slaves.

Answer 3

Pop. Sovereignty is for the people by the people... which is basically an attempt to spread equality through our rights as a people. Our vote is part of pop. sovereignty but our vote is partially violated by the electoral college..... we believe that equality through our liberties a.k.a. rights making everyone equal......

Answer 4

me and muh friends are fo popular whatevaaa.