Dictionary:

nullification

  (nŭl'ə-fĭ-kā'shən)

1. 1. The act of nullifying.
   2. The state of being nullified.
2. Refusal or failure of a U.S. state to recognize or enforce a federal law within its boundaries.

noun

An often formal act of putting an end to: abolishment, abolition, abrogation, annihilation, annulment, cancellation, defeasance, invalidation, negation, voidance. Law avoidance, extinguishment. See continue/stop/pause.

Is the doctrine by which states claimed power to declare a law of the federal government unconstitutional. It was the most important theoretical alternative to the idea that the U.S. Supreme Court is the final arbiter of constitutional controversies. In the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions (1798–1800) Thomas Jefferson and James Madison briefly adverted to nullification. New England Federalists often ignored the authority of the national government, while other states, most notably Kentucky in Green v. Biddle (1823) and Georgia in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), refused to recognize the authority of the Supreme Court (see Cherokee Cases).

The most important and systematic development of nullification doctrine occurred in South Carolina. In the South Carolina Exposition and Protest (1828), John C. Calhoun, who was then vice president, argued that the Constitution was a compact among the sovereign states whereby they delegated limited and carefully specified powers to the federal government. If a state believed the federal government had over‐reached its authority, it could call a special convention to declare the law unconstitutional and nullify its operation. Should the federal government respond by adopting an amendment to the Constitution in order to legitimize its authority, the state could either acquiesce or secede from the Union.

Although Calhoun always stressed the peaceful and legal nature of nullification, President Andrew Jackson viewed the doctrine as revolutionary and treasonous when South Carolina implemented it during the nullification controversy of 1832–1833. During the next three decades, nullification, with its emphasis on secession as a constitutional right, became increasingly intertwined with states' rights and the South's defense of slavery.

See also State Sovereignty and States' Rights.

— Richard E. Ellis

For more information on nullification, visit Britannica.com.

In the years preceding the Civil War, some supporters of state powers and rights developed the doctrine of nullification. Advocates of nullification claimed that state governments had the power, under the U.S. Constitution, to declare a federal law unconstitutional, or unlawful and void.

John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, then Vice President of the United States, was the leading proponent of nullification. In the essay South Carolina Exposition and Protest (1828), Calhoun argued that the Constitution and federal Union were established by sovereign states, not by the people of the United States. Thus, the state governments have authority to decide whether acts of the federal government are constitutional or not. If a state government decided that the federal government had exceeded constitutional limits on its powers, then the state could call a special convention to nullify the law, thereby declaring that the law would not be enforced in the state. The nullification doctrine was linked to the claim that a state had a right to secede from, or leave, the federal Union.

In 1832, during a controversy about a federal tariff law, South Carolina attempted to use Calhoun's nullification doctrine to declare the federal statute unconstitutional. There was talk of secession. President Andrew Jackson responded with the threat of military force to suppress actions that he viewed as rebellious violations of the U.S. Constitution. The crisis ended with a compromise about the terms of the disputed federal tariff law.

Arguments about the nullification doctrine and the right of secession were settled, once and for all, by the Civil War (1861–65). After the Union victory over the Confederate states, there was no more serious advocacy of a state's right to nullify a federal law or to secede from the federal Union. The Supreme Court, in Texas v. White (1869), concluded that the Constitution created “an indestructible Union, composed of indestructible states.”

See also Calhoun, John C.; Constitutionalism; Federalism; Implied powers; Texas v. White

Sources

• Ross M. Lence, ed., “Union and Liberty: The Political Philosophy of John C. Calhoun” (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1992)

Nullification, the theory which holds that a state can suspend, within its boundaries, a federal law, was a deeply held conviction for many "states' rights" advocates in the nineteenth century, and one of the factors that led to the Civil War (1861–1865). Nullification has its roots in the Enlightenment era of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Political thinkers, such as John Locke, questioned the validity of "divine-right monarchies," and suggested that people had the right to over-turn laws, or entire governments, that did not benefit the governed.

The American Revolution (1775–1783), in which Americans declared themselves independent of Great Britain, was a practical extension of Enlightenment political thought. So was the first government of the United States—the Articles of Confederation—which had no strong central government and reserved most major statutory power for the individual states.

However, the Articles were too weak to function adequately, and in 1787 national leaders drafted the Constitution, which created a strong federal government but reserved many rights to the states. Almost immediately, Antifederalists and later Democrat-Republicans charged that the federal government had amassed too much power.

President John Adams, a Federalist, angered Democrat-Republicans when he sought broad protectionist powers with the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798. In the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, both Democrat-Republicans, said that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional and that states should nullify them. They reasoned that states had given power to the Constitution by approving it in the ratification process, and they could take that power away if it became abusive. While no state nullified the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson and Madison had sanctioned the idea.

In 1828, nullification nearly split the nation. To help domestic manufactures, Congress enacted a high tariff on imported goods. Southerners, afraid that European states would retaliate with high tariffs on cotton and other southern exports, decried the act as the "Tariff of Abominations" and called for its repeal. Vice President John C. Calhoun, a South Carolinian, penned his "South Carolina Exposition and Protest," in which he invoked the theory of nullification to deal with the tariff.

When Tennessean Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1828, Southerners expected him to back a reduced tariff. Instead, Congress enacted an even higher tariff in 1832. Enraged, Calhoun, now a South Carolina senator more stridently called for nullification.

Spurred by Calhoun's rhetoric, the South Carolina legislature passed an Ordinance of Nullification, making the federal tariff null and void and making it a state offense to collect the tariff after 1 February 1833. Jackson surprised Southerners when he backed congressional passage of a "Force Bill" that authorized federal troops to occupy South Carolina and collect the tariff. In the meantime, Congress also passed a "compromise," or reduced tariff. Pleased with the compromise but shaken by Jack-son's threat of force, the South Carolina legislature reconvened in March 1833 and rescinded the Ordinance of Nullification. But to avoid looking cowed by the U.S. Congress, legislators "nullified" the federal Force Bill before they adjourned.

Northern states also dabbled with nullification. In 1814, old line Federalists in New England, angry over Democrat-Republican policies that caused the War of 1812 (1812–1815), sought to nullify federal mandates. And in 1850, some Northern states nullified new fugitive slave laws, part of the Compromise of 1850, that mandated Northern authorities return escaped slaves to the South. Traditionally, though, nullification and states' rights doctrines were the hallmarks of the antebellum South.

Bibliography

Brinkley, Alan et al. American History: A Survey. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1991.

Cancellation, revocation. See also annul. Often refers to the power of a jury to negate a conviction by refusing to follow the judge's instructions (which would have resulted in a guilty finding if literally applied but would have perpetrated an injustice under the particular circumstances). Nullification occurs when, contrary to the evidence, the jury acquits, often in cases involving political causes, civil disobedience, racism, or overzealous or selective prosecution. William Penn benefitted from jury nullification in 1670 when he was acquitted in his unlawful assembly trial for organizing Quaker meetings.

The doctrine that states can set aside federal laws. Urged in the late 1820s by John C. Calhoun, nullification precipitated a crisis between Calhoun and President Andrew Jackson. The doctrine was foreshadowed by Thomas Jefferson's draft of the Kentucky Resolutions. (See Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.)

The process of nullification may refer to:

• Declaring a law to be null or void in a jurisdiction, or refusing to enforce a law.
• The legal theory that a U.S. State has the right to nullify, or invalidate, any federal law which that state has deemed unconstitutional. The theory is based on a view that the sovereign States formed the Union, and as creators of the compact hold final authority regarding the limits of the power of the central government. Under this, the compact theory, the States and not the Federal Bench examine the extent of the Government's power. (See also: interposition) See the following articles:
• Jury nullification, a legal term that refers to a jury's right to deliver a verdict in contradiction to written law.
• Body nullification, the practice of removing body parts.
• Physical nullification, a hypothesized process which results when ordinary mass/energy encounters "negative" mass/energy. Not to be confused with annihilation which involves anti-matter.

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

Nullification and attempts at nullification in the US

• The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions nullified the Alien and Sedition Acts in Kentucky and Virginia.
• The Hartford Convention, in which New England Federalists nullified Thomas Jefferson's embargo and even considered secession from the United States of America.
• The Nullification Crisis in the United States of America, in which South Carolina passed legislation legalizing its invalidation of objectionable federal laws.
• Geogia's nullification of the Treaty of Hopewell, a treaty made by the US government with the Cherokee Nation. Georgia confiscated Cherokee land and improvements, violating the treaty.
• Refusal by Arkansas to enforce the US Supreme Court's Brown v. Board of Education 1954 school desegration ruling.
• Perhaps the most notable current example is the nullification of US drug prohibition law by over a dozen states which have legalized medical marijuana.
• Arcata, California was the first city to pass an ordinance that bars city employees (including police and librarians) from assisting or cooperating with any federal investigations under the PATRIOT Act that would violate civil liberties. Other cities and localities have acted similarly.

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