Has there every been a time in US history where states began to adopt widely practiced legislation that directly contracted a Fedral law which made that practice specifically illegal (like marijuana)?

by haby112
no-tea

This probably isn't the answer you're looking for, but the most obvious ones are the so-called "personal liberty laws" passed in the Northern states after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed into federal law.

The background is, the Fugitive Slave Act required state and local officials to assist slave-catchers in the North, or else they would face heavy penalties. (Federal officials were required to render aid, and would be given bonuses if they returned the alleged fugitive to the South.) The person who had been alleged to be the slave had no right to testify in his own defense, and persons who harbored or assisted fugitives slaves could be arrested and jailed for what we'd recognize today as obstruction of justice. In effect, this legalized the kidnapping of free blacks in the North.

In response, the state of Vermont and other northern states passed so-called "personal liberty laws," which forbade state officials from cooperating with slave-catchers, and created a right for purported escaped slaves to challenge their detention in court. These laws effectively made the Fugitive Slave Act unenforceable in those states.