USA HISTORY

Detailed explanation-1: -In response to the Tariff of 1828, vice president John C. Calhoun asserted that states had the right to nullify federal laws.

Detailed explanation-2: -A staunch defender of the institution of slavery, and a slave-owner himself, Calhoun was the Senate’s most prominent states’ rights advocate, and his doctrine of nullification professed that individual states had a right to reject federal policies that they deemed unconstitutional.

Detailed explanation-3: -Calhoun argued that the tariff was unconstitutional because it violated the trust of the states. If Congress passed a law that was unconstitutional, states had the right to nullify the law.

Detailed explanation-4: -What was John C. Calhoun’s nullification theory as set forth in “The South Carolina Exposition"? His theory was that the US Constitution was based on a compact among the sovereign states and so each of the 13 sovereign states had the right to nullify or reject a federal law that it considered unconstitutional.