Читать книгу Keeping the Republic - Christine Barbour - Страница 114

The Civil War represented a giant step in the direction of a stronger national government. The war itself was fought for a variety of reasons. Besides the issue of slavery and the conflicting economic and cultural interests of the North and the South, the war was fought to resolve the question of national versus state supremacy. When the national government, dominated by the northern states, passed legislation that would have furthered northern interests, the southern states tried to invoke the doctrine of nullification. Nullification was the idea that states could render national laws null if they disagreed with them, but the national government never recognized this doctrine. The southern states also seceded, or withdrew from the United States, as a way of rejecting national authority, but the victory of the Union in the ensuing war showed decisively that states did not retain their sovereignty under the Constitution.

nullification the declaration by a state that a federal law is void within its borders

What would the U.S. government be like today if states had the power of nullification?