Newly created territories in antebellum America were designed to be extensions of national sovereignty and jurisdiction. Utah Territory, however, was a deeply contested space in which a cohesive settler group--the Mormons--sought to establish their own "popular sovereignty," raising the question of who possessed and could exercise governing, legal, social, and even cultural power in a newly acquired territory.

In Unpopular Sovereignty, Brent M. Rogers invokes the case of popular sovereignty in Utah as an important contrast to the better-known slavery question in Kansas....

Newly created territories in antebellum America were designed to be extensions of national sovereignty and jurisdiction. Utah Territory, however, was a deeply contested space in which a cohesive settler group--the Mormons--sought to establish their own "popular sovereignty," raising the question of who possessed and could exercise governing, legal, social, and even cultural power in a newly acquired territory.

In Unpopular Sovereignty, Brent M. Rogers invokes the case of popular sovereignty in Utah as an important contrast to the better-known slavery question in Kansas....