At America's founding under the Declaration and continuing after the ratification of the Constitution, the states were jealous of their distinct identities and separate authority. How then could they form a United States of America?
The Constitution created a federal government of limited delegated powers, with the states retaining much of their sovereignty. This created not just a legal and political tension between state and federal power but between loyalty to one's state and region and to the federal government.
Jackson's point as I understand it was that the nullification crisis and the theories and doctrines fashioned by nullification advocates did not expire with the compromise that ended the crisis. Instead, they established the basis for a later crisis that would put the Union in jeopardy when those nullification doctrines and ideology would be used as arguments for secession.
In that context, Jackson identified slavery as the likely pretext for secession. In a larger sense though, after the nullification crisis, the South already had its bags packed and a divorce lawyer hired. Slavery, tariffs, an unpopular war, or other issue could trigger secession. Jackson's point was that in the nullification crisis, the South had already begun to repudiate the Union.
In that context, Jackson identified slavery as the likely pretext for secession. In a larger sense though, after the nullification crisis, the South already had its bags packed and a divorce lawyer hired. Slavery, tariffs, an unpopular war, or other issue could trigger secession. Jackson's point was that in the nullification crisis, the South had already begun to repudiate the Union.
And how is that different from my point?
That I would not disagree with. I'd just like to point out that Nullification in the early 1830s traces its origin back to the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions written by Jefferson and Madison in 1798 when they wrote that states could Nullify or "interpose themselves between the federal government and their citizens" when opposing the Alien and Sedition Acts. It was New England which had the Hartford Convention that proposed secession in 1814. Former President and current US Representative John Quincy Adams presented Congress with a petition for secession from Massachusetts in 1842. So the right of the states to nullify federal laws and secede from the union - unilaterally - had been present throughout US history. Southern secession in 1860-61 had a long tradition in the republic to that point.