Stephen Douglas
Stephen Douglas was a American politician from Illinois. He was a U.S. senator and was the democratic party nominee for president in the 1860 election, losing to Abraham Lincoln. He believed in the principle of popular sovereignty; that the majority of citizens should decide contentious issues such as slavery and territorial expansion. Douglas was a large player in the compromise of 1850 that apparently settled slavery. But, in 1854 he reopened the slave question with the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which opened previously prohibited territories to slavery because of popular sovereignty.
“Slavery is not the only question which comes up in this controversy. There is a far more important one to you, and that is, what shall be done with the free negro?”