Strictures on Nullification

A state claims it can nullify a federal law—but its chief defender insists it cannot “abrogate” one. Alexander Hill Everett begins by asking whether that distinction is anything more than a change of words.

In 1832, as South Carolina’s convention meets in Columbia and declares federal revenue laws null, a dispute over tariffs becomes a test of the Constitution itself. Writing amid what he calls one of the gravest crises in the nation’s history, Everett takes on the arguments for nullification, probing what the doctrine would require of the state, the federal government, and the other states. His first weapon is precision: if nullify, annul, and abrogate mean the same thing, what exactly is South Carolina claiming the right to do? And what follows if the Constitution grants no such power?

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