NULLIFICATION (Lat. nullifleatio, con tempt. making as nothing. from nullifieare, to despise, make as nothing, from nullus, none [(were, to do. make). In American history, the formal suspension by a State within its terri torial jurisdiction of a law of the United States. The right was first asserted in the famous Vir ginia and Kentucky Resolutions (q.v.) of 1798 and 1799. .Teffe•son and Madison were the spokes men of Kentucky and Virginia respectively. In the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 which were adopted by the Legislature, it was de clared that the Union was a 'compact•' and. as in other eases of compact. each party had a right to judge for itself of infractions and of the mode of redress. The resolutions of 1799 went even further, and declared that a nullification by the State sovereignties of all unauthorized acts done under cove• of the Constitution was the rightful remedy in cases of infraction. The Virginia Resolutions did not go so far, but characterized the Union as a 'compact' and called upon the other States to join her in declaring the Alien and Sedition Laws null and void. No further ac tion was taken for the time by these or other States to put into execution the methods of 're dress' here enunciated. After this there were occasional attempts to defeat the execution of legislative acts or judicial mandates of the United states courts, but with only partial suc cess. Thins in 1809 the Government of Penn sylvania ordered out the militia to resist a mamlate of the Federal court. Again, after the enactment of the Embargo Act the governments of several of the New England States. whose com merce and trade had been nearly destroyed. re sorted to various means either of judicial con struction or evasion to nullify the operation of the United States statute. The second wet. with I ;rota Britain, Which was vigorously opposed in New England, increased the nullifieation spirit in that section. In several States the operation of Federal enlistment statutes was defeated by the refusal of the State governments to comply with their requirements, and the opposition to the war policy increased to such an extent that a con vention was called at Hartford with a view. it was believed, of taking steps toward separation from the Union. (See Ilawrrotte CONVENTION.) A somewhat successful nullification of the Federal will occurred in Georgia in 1825 29 through the assertion by the State Gov ernment of jwisdietion over the lands occu pied by the Cherokee Indians. In none of these cases was the constitutional right to suspend a law of the United States made the basis of the violation. The first open assertion of nullifica tion as a constitutional right of each individual State appeared in a paper prepared by John C. Calhoun in 1828 for the Use of the South Caro lina Legislature. and entitled Thr Son I It Carolina Exposil ion. In this paper Calhoun argued that the States were sovereign, that the Federal Gov ernment was their agent, ind that whenever a sovereign State became satisfied that the agent was misusing the powers delegated to it it was the right of such State to interpose and suspend the operation of the power thus being abused.
According to this view the State had only to de cide that it given statute of Congress was uncon stitutional or oppressive. and then, acting through a convention I for Calhoun did not recognize the right of the Legislature in the premises), formally to suspend its further operation within the territory of the State until of the States in national eonvention should deelare the suspended act of Congress a valid and reason able law. In 1830. after the !sniffle:Ilion of the South Carolina 1:.rrosi ion Senator crl V. llaYlIc (q.v.). from South Carolina. in the celebrated debate with Daniel Ion the Foote resolution), made a brilliant de fense of the nullification doetrine, awl insisted, unlike Call . that the formal act of sion could he made by the Legislature. The ha mediate ()evasion for the assertion of the right of nullification by the two Carolinas was the rapid growth of the syst PM of protiwtive tariffs which, it was elaimed, acted injuriously upon South Carolina and the Si Mt hern States generally. where manufacturing industries had net gained a foothold. The TarilT Act of 182I, itself contain ing high protective features, had been followed by the so-called 'tariff of abominations' of I828. and a tariff act but little less (ante-able of 1832. The tithe hail now arrived for the trial of the new theory. and accordingly the of Smith Carolina called the Legislature together for smell action as it might deem proper. The Legislature summoned a convention representing the 'sov ereignty' of the State, and on November 24, 1S32, this body passed an ordinance declaring the tariff acts of 1828 and 1S32 null and void, prohibited the payment of duties after February 1, 1833, for bade appeals, on the questions involved, to the Su preme Court of the United States. and declared that if the Government of the United States at tempted to interfere South Carolina would no longer consider herself a member of the Union. The new Legislature. which met in December, put the State on a war footing and passed a series of acts to enable the State ollicers to carry out the policy of nullification. Meantime Presi dent Jackson took measures to enforce the col lection of the duties at Charleston, and on Decem ber 11th issued his celebrated proclamation warn ing the people of South Carolina that they were being misled by designing men, whose object was disunion and treason, and that he hind no discretionary duty, but must enforce the laws of the Union. Congress came to his aid and passed the so-called 'Force Bill' in March. 1833, but in the meantime a compromise tariff measure had been agreed upon and nude further resort to the Force Bill ennecessary. On March fith the South Carolina convention met and repealed the ordi nance of nullification. The conflict was thus postponed. and whether Union or null Meat ion triumphed in this controversy is still a debatable question. Consult: Janston, in Lalor, ('yr10 pled ia of Political Science (New York, 1893) ; Ileuaton, Critical Study of Nullification fib., 1896) ; and Powell, Nullification and Secession (ilr., 1897).