Testing the limits of national authority has a long history in American politics. Most frequently it has taken the form of state resistance to the positive exercise of federal power in a manner state leadership found abusive. Prior to the Civil War such confrontations were recurrent and touched a wide variety of issues, conspicuous among them the right of interposition claimed by Virginia in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the nullification threat of South Carolina against “the Tariff of Abominations,” and Wisconsin’s and Vermont’s efforts to block enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. Read more…
How the States Can Take Back the Government
