Disaster for the Constitution: Flawed assertions of state sovereignty

No doctrine has posed a greater threat to the U.S. Constitution than the flawed assertion of state sovereignty. It represented the extreme versions of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798, that asserted the authority of states to nullify federal laws, which would have eviscerated the Supremacy Clause and turned the Constitution on its head. It fueled the secession of southern states fr...