Popular Sovereignty Dbq

In 1852 the term “Popular Sovereignty” was created. This was a political idea that said the people who lived in a region should have the right to decide for themselves what type of government they wanted to have. In America, it was applied to the idea that colonists of a land had to decide under what terms they wanted to join the Union; it was applied to the status of either a free state or slave state. “The first crisis occurred when California, whose population had exploded in the gold rush, petitioned for statehood as a free state in December 1849. Admitting California, however, would upset the current, carefully wrought balance of fifteen slave states and fifteen free states”9
Lewis Cass initiated the concept, and later on S. Douglas took

When the American Civil War started, President Lincoln put together the problem and thought of it as concerning. He didn’t like the practice of slavery, and he also knew that neither people from the North nor the residents of the slave states that were in the border slave would be okay with the abolition as the aim for the war. Lincoln saw the abolition as a military strategy. He then presented a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, stating that slaves should be free. Although the Emancipation didn’t free any slaves, in my opinion, it was a turning point for the black community. When the Thirteenth Amendment came out, the Emancipation became a law. The 13th Amendment abolished slavery, stating “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States or any place subject to their

Some of these people were the members of the Ku Klux Klan. Created in 1866, the KKK was a big thing in almost every state in the South by 1870. Its members led a campaign full of intimidation and violence towards blacks and whites who supported them. Even though congress passed a legislation that was meant to get rid of their terrorism, the organization didn’t want to give up and wanted to create an establishment of white supremacy. “Klansmen spread a reign of terror across the south, lynching blacks and any whites who might support them. The Klan, although not yet including Catholics and Jews in its attacks, often left its calling card at a terror