ABSTRACT
In the wake of the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, states continued to assert constitutional interpretations casting doubt on the legitimacy of national policies. Federalists in the northeast who had condemned Virginia and Kentucky in 1798 employed similar resolutions to protest Jefferson’s embargo. However, what emerged was a tension between the right to interpret the Constitution and the authority to settle constitutional meaning. As states increasingly found themselves unable to secure a powerholding coalition to make and alter national policy, they turned to states as a means of enforcing their constitutional vision. Unlike Madisonian practices that were premised on interpretive pluralism and popular resolution, new claims of authority permitted a popular majority within a single state to define what the Constitution means. Chapter 3 explores the development of state-based practices through three cases studies: the embargo crisis, the tariff and nullification, and the response of northern states to federal fugitive slave laws.
