From: MARCI LEWIS
Date: 3/20/00
Time: 11:15:44 PM
Remote Name: 205.188.197.32
President Jackson was angry with some of the political leaders in South Carolina because he felt that the federal government should override the state government. The political leaders in South Carolina wanted to prevent the operation and enforcement within the state of the federal law of the abolination of slavery. Even though President Jackson was a slave owner himself, he felt the allowing South Carolina to nullify a federal law will ruin the union. President Jackson believed that the union should be preserved. He went as far as getting Congress to allow him to form a army to go into the state and enforce this law.
From reading this letter, it tells me that the relationship between the federal and state government was at this time wasn’t a good one. Meaning that whenever the federal government made a law and the state didn’t agree with it they would not enforce the law or try to nullify that law in their state. Basically the federal government wasn’t looked at as the head government as it is today. The state government was allowed to attempt to nullify a federal law if they didn’t agree with it. In my opinion this wasn’t good because the federal government was formed so that the U.S. would have a strong centralized government , and by allowing the states to do this question really how strong the government the they formed really was. This is what President Jackson stated in the letter stating, “this would loose the confidence in our government.” Also he states, “that is this was permitted the government would loose the confidence of our citizens and induce disunion everywhere.”