Nullification

Nullification, in U.S. history, an act by which a state suspends a federal law within its borders. An extreme outgrowth of the doctrine of states' rights, the tactic of nullification was particularly used by southern states before the Civil War. First used in the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions of 1798–99, the doctrine was invoked in 1832 by John C. Calhoun, who argued that the state of South Carolina could nullify the so-called “Tariff of Abominations.” When South Carolina declared the tariff null and void, some opponents of the action urged President Andrew Jackson to enforce the law by military action. Instead a compromise tariff was arranged before the state's nullification order came into effect. The doctrine of nullification died when the South lost the Civil War.