Why were northerners so opposed to popular sovereignty?

Answer 1

The southern states were opposed to the southern states secession because the South was the North's major source of revenue. in the 1860s, about 30 percent of the population of the United States lived in the South and yet they paid, through an unfair system of tariffs, up to 85% of the federal budget. Almost all of the funds the government collected from the South was spent in the North, because they had the majority of the votes in Congress.

The southern states began to secede when Abraham Lincoln was elected president, without getting a single electoral vote from the South. Lincoln's unpopularity in the south was due largely to the fact he had vowed to increase taxes against the South even more. At the same time, Lincoln pledged he would not interfere with slavery where it already existed, which was in both the North and the South.

Most of Lincoln's advisers and hundreds of northern newspapers felt the South should be allowed to go in peace, as was their constitutional right. Lincoln opposed by saying, "I can't let them go. Who would pay for the government?"

In March 1861, shortly before the outbreak of the War Between the States, the New York Evening Post editorialized on this point: "That either the revenue from duties must be collected in the ports of the rebel states, or the port must be closed to importations from abroad, is generally admitted. If neither of these things be done, our revenue laws are substantially repealed; the sources which supply our treasury will be dried up; we shall have no money to carry on the government; the nation will become bankrupt before the next crop of corn is ripe. There will be nothing to furnish means of subsistence to the army; nothing to keep our navy afloat; nothing to pay the salaries of public officers; the present order of things must come to a dead stop."

Answer 2

slaves would gain political standing

Answer 3

no