Christian G. Fritz is Emeritus Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law. He is the author of American Sovereigns: The People and America's Constitutional Tradition Before the Civil War (2008).

• Introduction; 1. The riddle of federalism and the genesis of interposition; 2. Early state use of interposition: testing the powers of the new national government; 3. State interposition and debates over the meaning of the Constitution; 4. The Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions and Madison's report of 1800; 5. State interposition during the Jefferson and Madison presidencies; 6. State challenges to the Supreme Court's control over constitutional interpretation; 7. The transformation of interposition: the theory of nullification emerges; 8. State interposition and nullification on the path to secession; 9. State interposition during and after the Civil War; 10. Modern interposition by states and 'nullification'; Epilogue.

'Fritz's meticulously researched and timely book reframes our understanding of interposition and shows that it was distinct in important ways from nullification. This book fills a gap in our knowledge of the states' role in early national federalism, placing the founders' ideas in context and showing how those ideas were reshaped in the early nineteenth century.' Alison L. LaCroix, University of Chicago, author of The Interbellum Constitution: Union, Commerce and Slavery in the Age of Federalisms