The significance of the Force Bill is that it overrode
South Carolina's effort to nullify federal laws during the Nullification Crisis. It was
the first law to explicitly deny that states had the right to secede as
well.
During the Nullification Crisis, South Carolina
claimed it had the right to ignore any federal laws that it thought were
unconstitutional. By doing this, it was saying that the states had the right to
determine what federal laws they would or would not obey. Pres. Andrew Jackson then
pushed for the Force Bill. He believed that the Constitution would be worthless if
states had the right to nullify laws and/or to secede.
This
crisis was one of the first major incidents that worked to push the North and South
apart.
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