Nullification And Secession Of States During The Civil War

During the civil war era the nullification and secession in the South was perfectly constitutional. According to the Compact theory, the federal government is only powerful due to the power of the states, therefore, the state’s have a say in the federal government and their rights. The South failed even though secession and nullification was constitutional only because the North had a more powerful army than the South and were able to overpower them.

Nullification is a legal theory that a state has the right to invalidate any federal law in which that state deems as unconstitutional. Courts at the state and federal level have rejected this theory due to the Supremacy Clause which stipulates that in the case of a conflict against federal and

Tariffs are taxes on imports that increase the prices of foreign goods in order to stimulate domestic industry. The Northerners saw the tariff as a benefit to the economy while the Southerners saw it as a burden on their people brought forth from the federal government. This placed Northern manufacturers and Southern plantation owners at odds end with each other setting the scene for the secession of states and the nullification of

President Lincoln was against the secession of states for a variety of reasons. In his first Inaugural Address he said that, “We cannot remove our respective sections from each other nor build an impassable wall between them”. The states cannot physically be separate and should not be separated by law either. Lincoln believed that secession was unlawful, saying that, “no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union”. They would be breaking the law by cutting their status in the union. Breaking this status would have to be done by revolution. Lincoln believed, “the central idea of secession is the essence of anarchy”. Lincoln believed that secession would destroy the world’s only democracy, showcasing to the world that a government run by the people would never work. During the eighteenth century, France was the only other country that had attempted democracy. Unfortunately, it did not succeed as people would would use the guillotine to resolve crimes. Lincoln wanted to remain in a position where other countries would look at America as an example and a source of