NULLIFICATION  , the

process of making null or of no effect (Lat. nullus, none) . In United States history the term is applied to the process by which a state either (a) in fact suspended, or (b) claimed a constitutional right of suspending, the operation of a federal law within its own territory . The doctrine of nullification as a constitutional theory was probably never held by a majority of the states or of the American people at any one time, though before 186o most of the states asserted or practised it . The belief in nullification was based on the theory that the union of the states was a voluntary one, each member retaining its sovereignty, though for purposes of convenience delegating certain powers of government to an agent—the federal government . The powers of this agent were strictly limited by the Constitution, and should it transcend these powers the states must interpose to protect their rights . This view held that the Supreme Court created by the Constitution was not a proper tribunal to decide causes arising beyond the Constitution or relating to the nature of the Union, but that its jurisdiction was limited to cases arising under the Constitu tion . If the Federal government usurped a right belonging to the state, the latter, being a sovereignty, must judge for itself . As later perfected by John C . Calhoun (q.v.), the theory of I remarkable discoveries to the skilful excavations of Dr Schulten nullification required a practice as follows . A state aggrieved by a law of the Federal congress might, in constituent convention, suspend the operation of the objectionable law, and report its action to the other states . If three-fourths of them should decide that the law in question was not unconstitutional, then in effect it became ratified (see United States Constitution, art. v.) . The dissatisfied state must then submit or must draw out of the union by the act of secession (see SECESSION, and CONFEDERATE STATES) .

This theory of the right of nullification was considered by those who held it to be in

accord with the principles laid down in the Constitution . It must be distinguished from secession, which was considered a sovereign right, one above the Constitution; yet nullification presumed the sovereignty of the state . The earliest assertions of the doctrine of nullification are found in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798-1799, written respectively by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison in protest against the Alien and Sedition Acts of Congress . Nullification was first practised in 1809 by Pennsylvania, the governor ordering out the state troops to resist the execution of a decree of a Federal court . In the New England states, 1809-1815, the United States laws relating to embargo, non-intercourse and army enlistments were nullified by state action . From 1825-1829 the state of Georgia forcibly prevented the execution of Federal laws and court decrees relating to the Indians within her borders and in Alabama, 1832-1835, there was a similar nullification . The only example of nullification in which theory and practice coincided was the nullification in 1832 by South Carolina of the Federal tariff laws . In this the state acted upon the theory outlined above which was perfected by Calhoun . In the last decade before the Civil War fourteen of the Northern states in the so-called " Personal Liberty laws " n lllified the Federal statutes relating to slaves and slavery by making it a crime for their citizens to obey these laws and by setting the state administration against the Federal officials . Since the Reconstruction the Southern states have in practice effected a nullification of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution providing for negro suffrage . See John C . Calhoun, Works, vols. i. and vi .

(New

York, 1853-1855) ; D . F . Houston, Critical Study of Nullification in South Carolina (New York, 1897) ; C . W . Loring, Nullification and Secession (New York, 1893) ; E . P . Powell, Nullification and Secession in the United States (New York, 1897) ; and U . B . Phillips, Georgia and States Rights (Washington, 1902) . (W . L .