"The great principle of self-government is at stake, and surely the people of this country are never going to decide that the principle upon which our whole republican system rests is vicious and wrong."
– Stephen Douglas, letter to Howell Cobb, Democrat from Georgia, 1854
The senator from Illinois was most likely making his statement in reference to which of the following principles that were set out by both the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act?
federalism
popular sovereignty
human slavery
private property ownership