Nullification is the declaration of an individual state that an act of the U.S. Congress is worthless and inoperative. Many Southern states claimed the right to do this in the years before the Civil War. The debate arose over whether it was constitutional to give the states the ability to do this or not.

The debate began when the Sedition Acts sentenced many Republican writers because they were speaking out against president Adam's acts. The people being punished considered this an act against their freedom of speech and they felt the courts were not defending them against these tyrannical measures. They referred to the resolution passed by Virginia which stated that each state had the right to judge the constitutionality of Congress's acts when they called the Congress void and null.
The Southern states did not support the tariffs and government's attempts to mend the country because they were afraid that they might start trying to do away with slavery as well. South Carolina boycotted any of the states that benefited from the Tariff of Abominations. They saw the tariff as only taking money from one part of the country for the benefit of another part of the country. People believed the Congress's tariff was unconstitutional and the Congress was exceeding their given powers. If an act was nullified by a state, it still had to be approved by three-fourths of the states.
Another nullification came over the issue of land in the west. The east wanted the price of western land to stay high, therefore preventing a lot of movement and taking away of the people. However the westerners wanted to get more land, but did not want to pay the high prices for it. In the result the south teamed up with the west to block Congress's attempts to mess with slavery and help the west to get their land for a better price. Senator Robert Y. Hayne spoke to open up public lands and on nullification on January 21, 1830. He thought that the states should have the complete right to annul acts of Congress. Webster did not think that the Union would stay united if states could just annul Congress's acts whenever they pleased. In his speech he brought up that the United States was more than just a sovereignty of states. It said that the states did not make up the Union but the people, and that the Supreme Court is the only one that can declare a law void.
In 1832 Congress proposed a new tariff with lower rates, which went even lower over the years, while still remaining a protective tariff. The south could see that it was not going to change any time soon since the vast majority passed it. In fear that the government would tamper with the issue of slavery, they nullified the act. In addition they hoped to get rid of the tariff, as it made it hard to buy the supplies they needed. After finding the tariff unconstitutional they decided they would just not pay the tariff, and if anyone tried to make them they would secede from the Union. Jackson did not believe that the states had the right to annul laws because the nation was higher than the states and they could not decide if they did not want to follow a law or secede from the Union. To enforce this he sent troops to South Carolina to make them pay their taxes. Calhoun told South Carolina to accept the new tariff and rescind the nullification they were attempting to pass. They finally did accept the compromising tariff but nullified the "force act" that had allowed the president to send troops to collect taxes.
In the end both sides, South Carolina and Union supporters, believed they had won. South Carolina thought their efforts had lowered the tariff and the Union supporters thought the Congress had made South Carolina behave. This compromise was only temporary and really did not solve any long-term problems.