Norfolk County is a county located in the U.S. state of Massachusetts. At the 2010 census, the population was 670,850. Its county seat is Dedham. The county was named after the English county of the same name with the meaning northern folk. Two towns, Cohasset and Brookline, are exclaves.
Popular sovereignty. Popular sovereignty or the sovereignty of the people is the principle that the authority of the government is created and sustained by the consent of its people, who are the source of all political power.
Popular sovereignty in 19 th century America emerged as a compromise strategy for determining whether a Western territory would permit or prohibit slavery. First promoted in the 1840s in response to debates over western expansion, popular sovereignty argued that in a democracy, residents of a territory, and not the federal government, should be allowed to decide on slavery within their borders.