In 1798, James Madison and Thomas
Jefferson wrote of a Constitutional theory that gave the states
the right to declare a federal law unconstitutional, therefore
not binding. Madison penned the Virginia Resolution and Jefferson
composed the Kentucky Resolution, which declared the states had
the rights to oppose federal laws. These early arguments by Madison,
the author of the Constitution, seemed to be a moderate solution
to the possibility of secession.
The nullification controversy of
1832–33 confronted Andrew Jackson with the greatest crisis
of his presidency, the defiance of the federal government by South
Carolina. The passage of tariff bills in 1828 and 1832, favoring
northern manufacturing over southern agriculture, had been the
immediate cause of the crisis leading to South Carolina's Ordinance
of Nullification of 1832, declaring the tariff acts null, void,
and not binding upon her. John C. Calhoun, vice president to Andrew
Jackson, favored nullification over secession. Calhoun originally
intended to use the nullification argument as a threat to the
federal government to lower the tariff rates, instead it sparked
a debate in Congress that divided the nation even further. In
a toast at a Democratic banquet, Jackson made a toast saying,
"Our Federal Union-it must be preserved" Calhoun responded,
"The Union-next to our liberty most dear." Calhoun resigned
from his post as vice president and took a seat in Congress from
South Carolina.
In 1833, Congress passed a "force
bill" which authorized Jackson to use violence to preserve
the Union. Jackson's swift response, a Proclamation to the People
of South Carolina, in December of 1832, made it clear that any
action taken to uphold nullification by armed force was treason.
A compromise on the tariff issue offered by Senator Henry Clay
was passed in 1842, which gradually reduced rates to the 1816
level. Secession and the violence of the Civil War would eventually
lead to the end of the debate over nullification.
