Constitutional crisis

A constitutional crisis has been descibed as a situation that a legal system's constitution or other basic principles of operation appear unable to resolve; it often results in a breakdown in the orderly operation of government.

List

Here is a list of constitutional crisis' which have occurred in the United States and its immediate predecessors:

• The Stamp Act of 1765
• The Nullification Crisis of 1832.
• In 1841 the death of President William Harrison resulted in Vice-President John Tyler becoming President, the first vice-president to succeed thus to the presidency.
• The secession of seven Southern states in 1861, which the federal government did not recognize, leading to the Civil War.
• 1876 presidential election: Republicans and Democrats disputed voting results in three states. An ad hoc Electoral Commission, created by Congress, voted along party lines in favor of Republican candidate Rutherford B. Hayes, who in the Compromis of 1876 bowed to the Democrats demand to end Reconstruction. This initiated the Democrats century- long policies of segregation and Jim Crow.
• Watergate.

Looming

• The election of Hillary Rodham Clinton, first US president elected under criminal investigation.