<P> The term "popular sovereignty" was not coined by Douglas; in connection with slavery in the territories, it was first used by presidential candidate and Michigan senator Lewis Cass in his 1847 Nicholson Letter . Today it is more closely associated with Douglas, and its connection to the failed attempt to accommodate slavery gave the term its present pejorative connotation . Douglas "ultimately became the victim of the very politics he sought to remove from territorial policy" by advancing the idea of popular sovereignty: "His efforts were not judged in terms of their impact on the needs and desires of the territories...Rather, they were appraised in terms of their relation to the power struggle between North and South and to the issue of slavery . Despite Douglas's intentions, the territories continued to be but pawns in a larger political controversy ." </P> <P> The colonists' struggle for equality with the King of Britain was enshrined in the American Declaration of Independence and was common knowledge in the United States after the American Revolution . Inaugural Chief Justice John Jay, in Chisholm v. Georgia (1793), illustrate what would come to be known as popular sovereignty: </P> <P> It will be sufficient to observe briefly that the sovereignties in Europe, and particularly in England, exist on feudal principles . That system considers the Prince as the sovereign, and the people as his subjects; it regards his person as the object of allegiance, and excludes the idea of his being on an equal footing with a subject, either in a court of justice or elsewhere...No such ideas obtain here; at the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people, and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects, and have none to govern but themselves (.) </P> <P> From the differences existing between feudal sovereignties and governments founded on compacts, it necessarily follows that their respective prerogatives must differ . Sovereignty is the right to govern; a nation or State sovereign is the person or persons in whom that resides . In Europe, the sovereignty is generally ascribed to the Prince; here, it rests with the people; there, the sovereign actually administers the government; here, never in a single instance; our Governors are the agents of the people, and, at most, stand in the same relation to their sovereign in which regents in Europe stand to their sovereigns . </P>

Which law allowed popular sovereignty in several u.s territories