Rights of the States Continued….Federal Sovereignty versus States Rights was not a new problem to the United States. First appearing during the writing of the Constitution and continuing through Hamilton’s Bank and the Federalist Papers, this debate raged right into the 19th century, beginning with the Hartford Convention, where delegates proposed that a state had the right to “interpose authority” in a case of “dangerous and palpable infractions.” However, this was only the first in a series of arguments that would in the end, result in civil war.The next major step was the handling of cases for businesses. During the 1810’s and 20’s Chief Justice John Marshall passed made several rulings reducing state power. In Sturges v. Crownshield, he decided that a state could pass bankruptcy laws but could not be applied to debts incurred before the ratification of the law. During Dartmouth College v. Woodward, he ruled that a state (or any party) could not cancel a contract without the consent of the other side. He struck again, in 1815, this time at the New York ferry monopoly by saying that the state could not regulate commerce on borders. Finally, in 1819, he stated that the bank was constitutional and that the federal law was supreme over the states, who had no right to tax it. In doing this, he sharply defined the rights of the states as subordinate to those of the nation’s. However, Marshall’s rulings did not last long. During the term of Andrew Jackson, the Bank was destroyed by the president. Staring with vetoing the renewal of the Bank’s charter, he set out to eliminate what he though was a corrupt monopoly. By demolishing the Bank, he allowed smaller state banks to assume more power. Finally, during the early 1830’s, nullification came into question. In this situation, South Carolina had declared a government law, (tariff bill) void because a convention found it...
