Nullification
Type of document Essay
1 Page
Subject area Political Science
Academic Level High School
Style MLA
Number of references 1
Order description:
Your analytical posts should be at least 2 paragraphs long and substantially targeted to address the central topic/theme of the blog. In your posts, you should use examples and citations to support your arguments. I strongly encourage you to make the posts lively and engaging. We want this to be fun for everyone to read. However, be mindful that your posts should be clearly written and detailed.
In addition to your own posts on the subject, it is expected that you will be writing responses to the posts from your classmates. You should regularly read and respond to this blog.
Grades for the blog will be assigned using the rubric attached to the blog. I strongly encourage you to review this rubric before starting the assignment.
As he closed out his first term in office, President Andrew Jackson issued a proclamation that was aimed at South Carolina’s assertion that states had the power to “nullify” federal legislation that they found to be disagreeable. In this particular case, the matter at hand was the imposition of tariffs, but the bigger question revolved around the proper relationship between states and the national government.
stoic portrait of Andrew Jackson” style=
Andrew Jackson
Jackson’s own vice-president, John Calhoun, was one of the chief proponents of the calls for nullification and South Carolina did, with his guidance, adopt a resolution declaring that the federal tariffs were “unauthorized by the constitution of the United States, and violate the true meaning and intent thereof and are null, void, and no law, nor binding upon this State.”1
portrait of a somber John Calhoun” style=
John Calhoun
Although this dispute took place nearly 200 years ago and the matter never developed beyond a war of words, it still highlights important constitutional and federal questions for today. Indeed, there is a growing call for states to resist federal attempts to dictate policy to them and restore states’ rights to a position they have not enjoyed for decades.
To highlight this connection, please read the following article from The Atlantic. The article, entitled “Nullification, Now Coming to the Supreme Court”, describes Mike Huckabee’s (former Republican presidential hopeful and Arkansas Governor) call for a modern revival of nullification. Unlike the 1830 dispute on trade policy, the concern now is same-sex marriage. As you read the article, take particular note of how the author, David Graham, frames the current nullification resurgence. He writes:
When the Tea Party wave arrived in 2010, it swept away much of the Republican Party’s existing structure, and instituted a more populist approach. But as waves tend to do, it left some even older debris in its wake. “Nullification,” the theory that states can invalidate federal laws that they deem unconstitutional, had its heyday in the slavery debate that preceded the Civil War, but it has found new currency since 2010.
The theory has never been validated by a federal court, yet some Republican officeholders have suggested states can nullify laws, including Senator Joni Ernst, who gave the GOP rebuttal to the State of the Union. Missouri legislators passed a bill that would have nullified all federal gun laws and prohibited their enforcement. My colleague James Fallows has described efforts by Republicans in Congress to block duly passed laws—refusing to confirm any director of an agency established by an act of Congress, for example—as a new form of nullification.2
Lest you think that this approach is relegated to only the fringes or American politics, you should take note that the 10th Amendment Center has been active on this front for some time and even has a particular page dedicated to arguing that “Nullification is not Unconstitutional”.
Of course you should look at this topic from the other side. To that end, visit the National Constitution Center website. Specifically you should read Lyle Denniston’s blog entitled “Constitution Check: Are state courts bound by federal court rulings on same-sex marriage?”
So where do you stand?
Do you think nullification is a viable approach to strengthening states’ rights?
For your blog submission, you should pick a topic where you see states and the federal government at disagreement and dissect how/why the state could/could not invoke nullification to get its way. (You can’t use the topic of same-sex marriages.)
