Short answers, pulled from the story.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798 that states formed a compact to create a general government for special purposes. He argued each state retained the right to judge when the federal government exceeded its delegated powers.
Records from the Constitutional Convention of 1787 contain no discussion of state nullification power. The records show no assertions that states had the power to nullify federal laws and instead support the idea that final interpretive power lay with federal courts.
The Supreme Court first dealt with nullification in 1809 through the case of United States v. Peters. Chief Justice William Johnson held that if state legislatures could annul federal judgments, the Constitution became a solemn mockery.
John C. Calhoun later expanded this view in the South Carolina Exposition and Protest of 1828 asserting tariff acts were unconstitutional. He asserted that nullification was an essential attribute of state sovereignty and believed denial of the right to interpose alarmed thinking Southerners more than any other cause.
Wisconsin courts held the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 unconstitutional in Ableman v. Booth in 1859. The Supreme Court held no power was more clearly conferred than deciding all cases arising under the Constitution and affirmed final appellate authority rested with the federal judiciary.
The Civil War effectively ended the viability of nullification as a political strategy. Daniel Farber noted the war terminated the possibility of states serving as constitutional guardians and established that the Union was more than a compact between sovereign entities.