“South Carolina Exposition and Protest”
As a Senator, Calhoun fought for states’ rights and for the South. In 1828 he
anonymously wrote the South Carolina Exposition and Protest in which he stated his
ideas of nullification. This was based on the idea that the Constitution was a contract
between the states and the Federal Government. If the Federal Government broke this
contract then a state could withdraw from the contract.
The Constitution of the United States was formed
by the sanction of the States . . . . being parties to the
Constitutional compact.
In . . . cases of compact between parties having no
common judge, each party has an equal right to
judge for itself . . . the mode and measure of redress.
It is true, that the third section of the first article
of the Constitution of the United States
authorizes Congress to lay and collect an
impost duty, but it is granted as a tax power,
for the sole purpose of revenue; a power in its
nature essentially different from that of
imposing protective or prohibitory duties.
“South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification”
Whereas the Congress of the United States, by various Acts,
purporting to be acts laying duties and imposts of foreign
imports, but in reality intended for the protection of domestic
manufactures
[Congress] hath . . . violated the true meaning and intent of
the Constitution . . . and collected unnecessary revenue for
objects unauthorized by the Constitution
We therefore, the people of the State of South Carolina in
Convention assembled, do declare and ordain . . . [ that the
tariff acts of 1828 and 1832] are null, void, and no law.