Nullification: An Early Argument

Do the states have the power, or indeed the obligation, to nullify federal laws, if those laws are unconstitutional. We won’t presume to answer that question here. However, we will examine some of the arguments raised during the Nullification Crisis of 1832.

Some background is probably in order.

The debate centered around President Andrew Jackson’s Tariff of 1832. The South, and South Carolina in particular, saw this tariff as a nothing less than a means of transferring wealth to the northern states at the expense of the southern states. The tariff ensured that the prices for northern finished goods would remain artificially high by protecting them from foreign competition. At the same time, raw cotton enjoyed no such protection, and was sold at market value.

Interestingly enough, the debate pitted the Vice President, John C. Calhoun, against President Jackson, as the leaders of the opposing sides. Calhoun resigned as Vice President to take up his argument in the Senate, where South Carolina returned him.

Calhoun championed the notion of states’ rights and maintained that the unconstitutional federal laws could and should be “nullified” by the states as a legitimate means of defending not only their rights, but also in protection of the Constitution itself and the people. In support of his argument, Calhoun referenced the work of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, which pertained to the obligation of the states to ignore the odious Alien and Sedition Acts, enacted during the Federalist administration of John Adams. The salient portion:

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Nullification: An Early Argument