Personal Liberty Laws
Constitutionally Sound: Nullification of the Fugitive Slave Act
The northern nullification of the fugitive slave acts stands as one of the best examples of state resistance to federal actions, both from a practical and moral standpoint. Northern efforts proved particularly effective, and it’s nearly impossible to knock northern...
Nullification: Massachusetts in 1855 and Missouri in 2014
Northern states carried out arguably the most successful non-compliance campaign defying a federal act in history with their opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Today, a Missouri bill takes a page from that playbook to stop state cooperation with federal...
Glover, Booth and Paine: Over 150 years of nullification
In the 1850s, a banging on a door marked the beginning of a seven-year saga that would end with a state defying the U.S. Supreme Court. That defiance continues to this day. Joshua Glover was playing cards in his single-room, dirt-floor cabin near the shore of Lake...
What Confederates Really Thought of Nullification
It is sometimes claimed that the principles of nullification are simply energized attempts to protect slave rights. It is also alleged that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison’s blueprint was simply used to perpetuate a “Neo-Confederate” mentality, one that acted to...