The Nullification Crisis was a
sectional crisis during the presidency of
Andrew Jackson that arose when the state of South Carolina attempted to nullify a federal law passed by the
United States Congress. The crisis developed during the national economic downturn throughout the 1820s that hit South Carolina particularly hard. South Carolina’s attempt was based on a constitutional theory articulated by South Carolina’s
John C. Calhoun. He believed that any state could unilaterally, or in cooperation with other states, refuse to comply with any federal law which a convention selected by the people of the state ruled was unconstitutional. The theoretical issue related to the very nature of the
United States Constitution. As historian Forest McDonald wrote, “Of all the problems that beset the United States during the century from the Declaration of Independence to the end of Reconstruction, the most pervasive concerned disagreements about the nature of the Union and the line to be drawn between the authority of the general government and that of the several states.” In this specific case, however, most states’ rights supporters outside of South Carolina considered the "nullifier position" to be extreme and rash.
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