John C. Calhoun, the father of the 'nullification' doctrine, bows downto President Andrew Jackson's command to preserve the Union.
NULLIFICATION
There are 13 states with so-called 'sanctuary laws' enacted in the United States of America. There are more in smaller jurisdictions. These illegal immigrant-friendly laws either prohibit or discourage cooperation with Immigration officials.
And ALL of them stand in open defiance to the laws of the land, and practice nullification; all of them are in a state of insurrection against the United States of America.
Why?
Because of this: Article VI, Paragraphs 2 through 3.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution.
The borders of the United States are identified by Federal law as are the penalties for illegal breach of said borders. Therefore, protecting fugitives from illegal entry is an act of outright treason. Not standing up to these runaway states and other government bodies before now has led, one could argue, to the truculence and terroristic bent of anti-I.C.E. rioters of Spring and Summer of 2025. But 1) have the government challenged these subsets in revolt? And 2) what are the origins of the 'sanctuary' movement, both historically and political philosophy?
Let's take the second first.
The term 'nullification' sprouted in the cotton fields of South Carolina in the early 19th century. Anti-Federalist, agrarian sentiments were surging in the young United States. This movement actually threatened the Union, as radical politicians began to stand in the president's way when it came to—guess what?--tariffs.
Andrew Jackson was arguably the first American president to not only feel, but also to use the power of the office fully. As America wrestled with expansion and transportation under the Clay/Calhoun American System, Jackson wanted protections from foreign producers. Iron, hemp, flax and manufactured goods were flooding American markets and competing handily against America's nascent industries and production.
One state, however, threw up a barricade to the 1828 Tariff (of Abominations): South Carolina.
South Carolina feared that Great Britain would greatly reduce its demand for Palmetto State cotton in response to the tariff. South Carolina also relied heavily on manufactured goods from the highly industrial British Isles. The tariff itself was styled as a help to northern business interests; southern states were resentful. With the election of anti-Federalist and pro-nullification politician Robert C. Hayne in 1832, he and people like him gave birth to a nest of insurrectionists urging forward the notion of nullification—refusal to honor or enforce federal law.
Jackson and South Carolina sparred for years, leading to a mollifying compromise tariff bill in 1833. But the year before, Jackson issued an Executive Proclamation to the people of South Carolina (click here).(https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/jack01.asp):
“...(O)ur social compact in express terms declares, that the laws of the United States, its Constitution, and treaties made under it, are the supreme law of the land,” wrote Jackson in his Proclamation.
The argument, however, led Jackson's Vice President John C. Calhoun, the father of the nullification movement, to resign his office. And so the back and forth went forward until South Carolina's revolutionary cadre led the state to shell Fort Sumter on April 12-13, 1861, ushering in the secession of Southern States and the ensuing Civil War.
One hundred and fifty years later the nullification locust began to sing its song. Cotton was not the issue in 2010; the issue was, and is, illegal immigration.
Then first, the biggest blow to the anti-nullification movement have been rulings by rogue judges like Lindsay C. Jenkins. Jenkins ruled—shockingly--in The United States vs. Illinois (click here) on July 25, 2025 that the Immigration and Nationality Act coupled with the 10th Amendment OVERRULE Article VI of the Constitution. This “Supremacy Clause” states the following: the Constitution is the law of the land, and “...any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.”
Further, Jenkins ruled that the 10th Amendment kept states from being commandeered by the national government: The text of the 10th Amendment:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
This ruling flies in the face of the Constitution's wording in Article VI, and offers an invisible argument for the 10th Amendment's supremacy over the Supremacy Clause itself!
The 10th Amendment comes nowhere close to that idea.
Anyone can read that the statement in Article VI is plain: NOTHING may come between Americans and this Constitution. Not public sentiment regarding illegal aliens, nor even Judge Jenkins. Yet this stance is now a decade-old conflict over the issue of illegal aliens in the United States. Judges like Jenkins, a President Biden appointee, though, continue to betray their oaths to uphold the Constitution by creating faux precedent to prosecute and protect their political ideologies.
These rogue rulings are sorted out at the Supreme Court level. However this fact casts a pall over the Supreme Court itself, as its majority becomes perhaps the highest political prize in the world, and therefore, too, the Senate Majority.
The 13 'original' 'sanctuary states'
Nullification ginned-up South Carolinians fire on Fort Sumter, beginning the Civil War.
Illinois Federal Judge Lindsay C. Jenkins ruled recently RIDICULOUSLY that the 10th Amendment overrules the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.