<Tr> <Td> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> </Td> </Tr> <Ul> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> <Li> </Li> </Ul> <P> Popular sovereignty, or the sovereignty of the people's rule, is the principle that the authority of a state and its government is created and sustained by the consent of its people, through their elected representatives (Rule by the People), who are the source of all political power . It is closely associated with social contract philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean - Jacques Rousseau . Popular sovereignty expresses a concept and does not necessarily reflect or describe a political reality . The people have the final say in government decisions . Benjamin Franklin expressed the concept when he wrote, "In free governments, the rulers are the servants and the people their superiors and sovereigns". </P> <P> Americans founded their Revolution and government on popular sovereignty, but the term was also used in the 1850s to describe a highly controversial approach to slavery in the territories as propounded by senator Stephen A. Douglas . It meant that local residents of a territory would be the ones to decide if slavery would be permitted, and it led to bloody warfare in Bleeding Kansas as violent abolitionists and proponents of slavery flooded Kansas territory in order to decide the elections . An earlier development of popular sovereignty arose from philosopher Francisco Suarez and became the basis for Latin American independence . Popular sovereignty also can be described as the voice of the people . </P>

What believe is the principle of popular sovereignty based upon