Which concept held that residents of a territory could vote to determine whether slavery would exist there, and who advocated it for the territories?

Which concept held that residents of a territory could vote to determine whether slavery would exist there, and who advocated it for the territories?

• A. Popular Sovereignty
• B. Federalism
• C. Nullification
• D. Bleeding Kansas

Answer: (A)

Popular sovereignty is the idea that residents of a territory should decide the issue of slavery there by a vote of the people living in that territory. This approach was advocated for the territories by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, most famously in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which let the people determine whether slavery would be legal in those areas. The plan aimed to settle the dispute through local choice rather than federal mandates, but it reopened the question of slavery’s expansion and fueled intense conflict in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions, known as Bleeding Kansas.

Popular sovereignty is the idea that residents of a territory should decide the issue of slavery there by a vote of the people living in that territory. This approach was advocated for the territories by Senator Stephen A. Douglas, most famously in the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, which let the people determine whether slavery would be legal in those areas. The plan aimed to settle the dispute through local choice rather than federal mandates, but it reopened the question of slavery’s expansion and fueled intense conflict in Kansas between pro-slavery and anti-slavery factions, known as Bleeding Kansas.