Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2023
The dispute over the Tariff of 1828 marked a turning point for interposition. State legislatures passed resolutions declaring protective tariffs unconstitutional, increasingly using more threatening language that echoed the doctrine of nullification John C. Calhoun advanced in the South Carolina Exposition of 1828. Calhoun’s arguments distorted Madison’s views and transformed traditional sounding the alarm interposition into an option for each state to nullify acts of the national government that it considered unconstitutional. Nullification prompted a national discussion about the nature of the Union, notably in the Webster–Hayne debate in the United States Senate in 1830.Nullifiers quoted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and Madison’s Report of 1800 to justify their constitutional theory, but misunderstood Madison’s theoretical right of the people to interpose in the final resort and overlooked the sounding the alarm interposition of the resolutions. Madison rejected both nullification and secession and tried to explain what he meant by a complex federalism based on divided sovereignty, ultimately failing to correct misconceptions about his resolutions.
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.