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The best known statement of the theory of nullification during this period, authored by John C. Calhoun, was the South Carolina Exposition and Protest of 1828. Calhoun asserted that the Tariff of 1828, which favored the northern manufacturing states and harmed the southern agricultural states, was unconstitutional. Calhoun argued that each ...
Nullification, an outgrowth of Jeffersonian compact theory, held that any state, as part of its rights as sovereign parties to the Constitution, had the power to declare specific federal laws void within its borders if it considered the law to be unconstitutional. Therefore, under Calhoun's schema, a law required two forms of majorities: a ...
Calhoun offered the concurrent majority as the key to achieving consensus, a formula by which a minority interest had the option to nullify objectionable legislation passed by a majority interest. The consensus would be effected by this tactic of nullification, a veto that would suspend the law within the boundaries of the state. [3] [4]
The South Carolina Exposition and Protest, also known as Calhoun's Exposition, was written in December 1828 by John C. Calhoun, then Vice President of the United States under John Quincy Adams and later under Andrew Jackson. Calhoun did not formally state his authorship at the time, though it was widely suspected and later confirmed.
He called for implementation of Jefferson's "rightful remedy" of nullification. Hamilton sent a copy of the speech directly to President-elect Jackson. But despite a statewide campaign by Hamilton and McDuffie, a proposal to call a nullification convention in 1829 was defeated by the South Carolina legislature meeting at the end of 1828.
John C. Calhoun further explains the nullification doctrine in an open letter to South Carolina Governor James Hamilton Jr., arguing that the Constitution only raises the federal government to the level of the state, not above it. He argues that nullification is not secession and does not require secession to take effect. [104]
Considered an early American third party, it was started by John C. Calhoun in 1828. [ 1 ] The Nullifier Party was a states' rights party that supported strict constructionism with regards to the U.S. government's enumerated powers, holding that states could nullify federal laws within their borders.
The Kentucky Resolutions of 1799, while claiming the right of nullification, did not assert that individual states could exercise that right. Rather, nullification was described as an action to be taken by "the several states" who formed the Constitution. The Kentucky Resolutions thus ended up proposing joint action, as did the Virginia Resolution.