UCLA Presents voteview.com beta

The Nullifier Party was a Southern (particularly South Carolinian) Right-Wing Party founded in 1828 as one of America’s earliest non-major “third” parties. The party was led by former Democratic-Republican South Carolinian John C. Calhoun, who was vice president at the time of the party’s formation. Calhoun broke with then-President Jackson personally, as well as over the issue of states’ rights and the powers of the federal government, and rather than joining Jackson’s Democratic Party, he formed the Nullifier Party. The party had a strong emphasis on states’ rights; indeed, the name “nullifier” comes from the belief that states could “nullify” federal laws within their borders that the state deemed unconstitutional. The party was also pro-slavery and anti-tariff, and interested in the rights of the minority Southern States, rather than the majority Northern ones. In the 1832 presidential election, South Carolina’s eleven electoral votes went to Nullifier and Calhoun ally John Floyd, after Calhoun himself decided not to run. Floyd did not mount a campaign: South Carolina’s electoral votes were determined by the state legislature, not any popular vote. After Andrew Jackson left the presidency, Calhoun and most of his followers became members of the Democratic Party, and the Nullifier Party was dissolved in 1839.