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Nullification Crisis
| Federalism |
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| •Key terms • Court cases •Major arguments • State responses to federal mandates • Federalism by the numbers • Index of articles about federalism |
The Nullification Crisis refers to the events surrounding the South Carolina State Legislature’s passage of an Ordinance of Nullification in 1832 that declared the Tariff of 1828 (also known as the Tariff of Abominations) and the Tariff of 1832 void because they disproportionately financially burdened southern states. In response, Vice President John Calhoun anonymously drafted an article titled "Exposition and Protest" that argued states could veto federal acts they judged to go beyond the federal government’s powers because the U.S. Constitution was an agreement among states.[1]
President Andrew Jackson, however, condemned the theory of nullification. In his “Proclamation to the People of South Carolina” issued in December 1832, Jackson cited the Supremacy Clause to support his claim that nullification was “incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed.”[2]
Congress in 1833 passed a bill authorizing President Jackson to deploy federal troops to South Carolina and enacted the Compromise Tariff, which aimed to ease the tax burden on the South. South Carolina repealed its ordinance in November 1833.[1][2]
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