FW

The problems popular sovereignty caused for the Mormons


The army coming out to Utah all started with the fighting between the democrats and the Whigs. These two groups were fighting over popular sovereignty, which allows each individual to vote over something they want, instead of allowing the government to decide what the states will do. The north does not like popular sovereignty because it might change their slave laws. The north does not allow slaves. Before popular sovereignty the decision on slaves was decided on where you lived and it didn’t change. This was the Missouri Compromise, it said that all states to the north of the southern border of Missouri are no slave states and those south of it were slave states. This is why the north is getting nervous over popular sovereignty, the people might vote for slavery in the northern states. After Kansas passed the Kansas-Nebraska act, which allowed popular sovereignty, a mini civil war started in Kansas. This causes the Whig party in the south to dissolve because most of the Whigs were in the north. The democrats survive in the south and get the Whig vote. The north then creates a new party replacing the Whig party and calls it the Republican Party. The only thing they stand for is against popular sovereignty. They use the Mormons as a bad example of what popular sovereignty leads too and they say if the democrats believe in popular sovereignty then they must favor the Mormons and polygamy. After the democrats win the vote for president with President Buchanan they feel like they need to prove themselves to show that they do not favor the Mormons. They start an anti-Mormon campaign. They want the people to take their minds off of the slave issue for a little bit and focus on the Mormons instead.

To be continued