The decision on whether to admit the states of New Mexico and Arizona as free states or slave states was made by:

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Popular sovereignty allowed the states to determine for themselves whether they would have slaves or not. It was the method of determination championed by Stephen Douglas, who hoped to replace Henry Clay as the orchestrator of compromise. Although pro-slavery vote tampering in Kansas illustrated the limitations of the popular sovereignty approach, it did temporarily present a strategy that stalled the coming of the Civil War.

The Decision on Whether to Admit the States of New