(also called squatter sovereignty) the right of territorial inhabitants applying for statehood to determine whether or not their state would or would not sanction slavery

Notion that political power or the power to govern is derived from the people. As such, the people retain the right to rescind any grant of power to the government.

idea that government should reflect the general will of the people, or the interests that all citizens have in common. Political theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) described this concept in Du contrat social (The Social Contract), published in 1762.

This doctrine came out during the debate over slavery in the territories. Popular sovereignty said that the people of each territory should be able to decide for themselves if slavery should be allowed in their territory when it became a state.

Popular sovereignty is the doctrine that the state is created by and therefore subject to the will of its people, who are the source of all political power. It is closely associated to the social contract philosophers, among whom are Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.