Principles of '98

The Principles of '98 refer to the US American political position that individual states of the United States could judge the constitutionality of central government laws and decrees, and could refuse to enforce laws deemed unconstitutional. This refusal to enforce unconstitutional laws is generally referred to as "nullification," but has also been expressed as "interposition," i.e. the states’ right to "interpose" between the federal government and the people of the state.

The term derives from the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions written in 1798 by James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, respectively. According to these US "founding fathers," if the central government was the exclusive judge of its limitations under the Constitution, then it would eventually overcome those limits and become more and more powerful and authoritarian. Formal limiting devices such as elections and separation of power would not suffice if the government could judge its own case regarding constitutionality. As Jefferson wrote, "When all government, domestic and foreign, in little as in great things, shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another, and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated."

In US history the position has come up repeatedly. Besides the original reaction to the Alien and Sedition Acts, the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, nullification was discussed and cited by New England states' courts and legislatures in reaction to the Embargo of 1807–1809 and later the War of 1812.

Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents, and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it? ... The operation of measures thus unconstitutional & illegal ought to be prevented, by a resort to other measures which are both constitutional & legal. It will be the solemn duty of the State Governments to protect their own authority over their own Militia, & to interpose between their citizens & arbitrary power. These are among the objects for which the State Governments exist; & their highest obligations bind them to the preservation of their own rights & the liberties of their people.

— Daniel Webster, Webster's Speech Against Conscription (December 9, 1814), Letters of Daniel Webster

Similarly, the Massachusetts General Court approved a committee report saying, "Whenever the national compact is violated, and the citizens of this State are oppressed by cruel and unauthorized laws, this Legislature is bound to interpose its power, and wrest from the oppressor its victim."

The South Carolina opposition to the Tariff of Abominations was also based on these principles, leading to the Nullification Crisis.

Another prominent use of the Principles of '98 was in opposing the central government's Fugitive Slave Laws, which forced people to aid and abet slavery, in particular the return of runaways.

Resolved, That the government formed by the Constitution of the United States was not the exclusive or final judge of the extent of the powers delegated to itself; but that, as in all other cases of compact among parties having no common judge, each party has an equal right to judge for itself, as well of infractions as of the mode and measure of redress. Resolved, that the principle and construction contended for by the party which now rules in the councils of the nation, that the general government is the exclusive judge of the extent of the powers delegated to it, stop nothing short of despotism, since the discretion of those who administer the government, and not the Constitution, would be the measure of their powers; that the several states which formed that instrument, being sovereign and independent, have the unquestionable right to judge of its infractions; and that a positive defiance of those sovereignties, of all unauthorized acts done or attempted to be done under color of that instrument, is the rightful remedy.

— Wisconsin Supreme Court, 1859 Statement

This Wisconsin ruling was in part taken word for word from the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.

As a result of the war of forced unification, the American Civil War, the Jeffersonian party favoring decentralized democracy and states' rights was essentially destroyed, and Principles of '98 were largely forgotten. The belief that the US Supreme Court was the proper final arbiter of constitutionality became commonplace.