Interesting reading on a subject I knew little about. Just a reminder that even centuries before the Tea Party, there were a lot of people in the U.S. who thought that everything they did not like was unconstitutional. However they seemed to put a lot more thought into it back then, and Calhoun's theory of "nullification" was much more elaborate than anything the originalists and pseudo-originalists can come up with now. Wrong, but he clearly did a lot more thinking about it. The author gives a pretty detailed account of how a confrontation with the customs agents would have come about and how both sides actually worked to avoid it on the ground level. The South
Carolinians did not compel merchants coming into Charleston to disregard tariff collection, and the Jackson administration moved the customs offices out into the harbor, onto Ft. Moultrie, to avoid a confrontation with the locals.
Ellis also links the nullification crisis to near constitutional crisis over the ethnic cleansing of the Cherokee from
Georgia. The Cherokees' supporters backed off and abandoned their case. They knew that if they pushed the authority of the Federal courts to uphold the rights of the Cherokee to their lands (where they had built towns, farms, etc) Georgia would support South Carolina in its standoff with President Jackson, who would not enforce the Court's decrees in any event.|Trying to convince my professor I'm smart! Read this and get this research paper done.
WHAT is Jacksonianism and is it being reproduced by the Tea Party today?
An absolute fantastic book on the nullification crisis! IF you think the arguments for and against States' Rights were about one single event in our History, namely the Civil War, you are mistaken- and you'd be mistaken if you thought it had to do with the Nullification Crisis, as well. The author goes into great and authoritative detail, breaking out the founding fathers and more, to show you WHY our country has been founded, for good or bad, on the fight for States' rights.|This is an interesting analysis of the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33, but it is written in a rather dry academic style that makes it slow going. I particularly liked Ellis' discussion of how nullification (the idea that any state, based on its sovereignty, may nullify - or refuse to acknowledge - any law passed by the federal government) fits in with various theories of states' rights. He also points out how the convergence of nullification and states' rights theories with efforts to justify slavery helped bring on the Civil War.|Got the ebook from Amazon quite inexpensively. I've read a great deal about both Jackson and Calhoun, so I'm hoping this will give further insight into the antagonism between the two. Plus, with a strong interest in the Civil War, it will be interesting to read about the contemporary reaction to South Carolina's actions.

An absolute fantastic book on the nullification crisis! IF you think the arguments for and against States' Rights were about one single event in our History, namely the Civil War, you are mistaken- and you'd be mistaken if you thought it had to do with the Nullification Crisis, as well. The author goes into great and authoritative detail, breaking out the founding fathers and more, to show you WHY our country has been founded, for good or bad, on the fight for States' rights.|This is an interesting analysis of the Nullification Crisis of 1832-33, but it is written in a rather dry academic style that makes it slow going. I particularly liked Ellis' discussion of how nullification (the idea that any state, based on its sovereignty, may nullify - or refuse to acknowledge - any law passed by the federal government) fits in with various theories of states' rights. He also points out how the convergence of nullification and states' rights theories with efforts to justify slavery helped bring on the Civil War.|Got the ebook from Amazon quite inexpensively. I've read a great deal about both Jackson and Calhoun, so I'm hoping this will give further insight into the antagonism between the two. Plus, with a strong interest in the Civil War, it will be interesting to read about the contemporary reaction to South Carolina's actions.