Popular Sovereignty | Definition, History, & Facts - Britannica

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External Websites

• University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository - Theory of Popular Sovereignty
• The Kansas City Public Library - Civil War on the Western Border - Popular Sovereignty
• Open Education at Bay Path University - HIS114 – United States to 1870 - Popular Sovereignty
• University of of Pennsylvania Carey Law School - Legal Scholarship Repository - The Very Idea of Popular Sovereignty: �We the People� Reconsidered
• MLibrary Digital Collections - Journal of Western Society for French History - �A living, creeping lie�: Abraham Lincoln on Popular Sovereignty (PDF)
• Saylor Academy - Popular sovereignty
• UC LAW SF Scholarship Repository - Popular Sovereignty and Its Limits Lessons for a Constitutional Convention in California
• Essential Civil War Curriculum - Popular Sovereignty
• DigitalCommons at University of Nebraska - Lincoln - Public Opinion is more than Law Popular Sovereignty and Vigilantism in the Nebraska Territory (PDF)
• LSU Scholarly Repository - The Failure of Popular Sovereignty: Slavery, Manifest Destiny, and the Radicalization of Southern Politicsthe Radicalization of Southern Politics

popular sovereignty historical United States political doctrine Ask Anything Also known as: squatter sovereignty Written and fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors Last updated Dec. 1, 2025 •History Britannica AI Ask Anything Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask Anything

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.”

Also called: squatter sovereignty (Show more) Related Topics: United States U.S. state slavery in the United States (Show more) On the Web: Open Education at Bay Path University - HIS114 – United States to 1870 - Popular Sovereignty (Dec. 01, 2025) (Show more) See all related content

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.