6 events in Passaic County with a date

Law invoked to quell rebellions, unrest

Insurrection Act of 1807 allows president to deploy troops on U.S. soil

By: Josy Meyer
USA Today

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump has said he would consider invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 to fight crime and battle protesters in cities controlled by Democrats.
..... "I'd do it if it was necessary,' if courts block his deployment of National Guard troops, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on October 6. [2025] "So far, it hasn't been necessary. But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason. if I had to enact it, I'd do that."
..... "It's been invoked before," Trump told reporters a day later. "we want safe cities."
..... The Insurrection Act or its predecessor have been invoked 30 times in American history since George Washington suppressed the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. The law gives the president the power to deploy U.S. armed forces to suppress rebellions and civil unrest or when federal laws are being obstructed.
..... "The last time presidents invoked it against the wishes of state leaders was to supports violent massive resistance to civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s," presidential historian Matt Dallek said.
..... "President have a duty under Article 2 to take care that the laws eyer faithfully executed,: said Claire Frankenstein, a University of Pennsylvania law school professor.
..... Trump threated to invoke the act during his first term in 2020 but pulled back when Defense Secretary Mark Esper publicly opposed the move. In this term, Trump has invoked other statutes to deploy the National Guard and even the U.S. military to states such as California and Illinois against the wishes of those states' governors.
..... The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
..... Here are some of the more notable uses of the Insurrection Act, usually to quell rebellions, or in cases in which local or state authorities were unable or unwilling to maintain order or uphold the Constitution
* 1794, the Whiskey Rebellion: While this was before the Insurrection Act existed, and helped lead to its creation, President George Washington invoked the Militia Act of 1792 to put down an armed uprising in western Pennsylvania where farmers were rebelling against a federal whiskey tax.
..... Washington is said to have personally led more than 10,000 militia troops in what is believed to be the first - and only - time a sitting president has commanded troops in the field. The federal response quashed the rebellion with out significant bloodshed and was seen as an important precedent in hope the federal government could, use the military if needed on U.S. soil to enforce its laws.
* 1807 Insurrection Act is passed: President Thomas Jefferson signed the Insurrection act into law after Congress formalized the principle established by Washington 15 years earlier. It authorized presidents to sue the U.S. military - an Army and Navy at the time - to suppress insurrection and rebellions and enforce federal law when and where it was being obstructed.
..... Specifically, the Insurrection Act allowed the president to act unilaterally to federalize the militia of any state, and to sue the armed forces, and to deploy them in response to request by governor or state legislatures.
..... Jefferson did so, in part, to respond to efforts by the vice president in his first term. Aaron Burr, to muster a private army and seize land in the Southwest after his duel with Alexander Hamilton ruined his political career.
* 1861, the Civil War: President Abraham Lincoln invoked the Insurrection Act on April 15, 1861, to call up 75,000 militia troops following the secession of 11 southern states and the Conference attack on Fort Sumter in south Carolina;s Charleston Harbor. his effort to suppress the rebellion and restore federal authority marked the beginning of the Civil War.
..... Lincoln's response ultimately became the biggest and longest use of presidential military power on U.S. soil in sophistry, as Union and Confederate forces hassled in battles that also tested the limits of executive power.
* 1871-1876 Ku, Klux Klan terrorism: In the post-Civil War Reconstruction ere, President Ulysses S Grant invoked the Insurrection Act and recently established related laws multiple times to combat widespread white supremacist terrorism targeting Black people and their newfound civil and political rights.
..... On October 17, 1871, Grant sent federal troops into South Carolina to suppress Ku Klux Klan violence suing the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, which allows him to supervened the writ of habeas corpus to fight the domestic terror group. Grant's troops arrested hundreds of Klansman. He later intervened in Louisianan, Arkansas and South Carolina to quell violence by White supremacist groups.
*1894-1921, Pullman strike and other labor union battles: President Over Cleveland deplored federal troops to Illinois - over the governor's objections - to break the Pullman railway strike that he said was interfering with interstate commerce and mail delivery. In 1914, President Woodrow Wilson invoked the Insurrection Act to combat a Colorado labor uprising, and President Warren Harding invoked it in 1921 to quell a labor uprising by coal miners in West Virginia.
* 1957-1968, the Civil Rights era: President Dwight Eisenhower federalized the National Guard and deployed the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army to enforce desegregation in Arkansas after Governor Orval Faubus used the National Guard to block nine Black students from a Little Rock high school.
..... President John F. Kennedy invoked the act to enforce federal desegregation orders at the University of Mississippi in 1962 and again in 1963 after Governor George Wallace said he would block the admission of two Black students to the all-White University of Alabama. President Lyndon B. Johnson invoked the act to send troops into Detroit during the 1967 riots and to multiple cities in 1968 to quell unrest after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
* 1992, Los Angeles riots: President George H.W. Bush invoked the act on May 1, 1992, after the acquittal of LAPD officers who severely beat Back motorist Rodney King sparked rioting in South Central Los Angeles and elsewhere. Bush deployed the National Guard and U.S. troops to restore order after California governor Pete Wilson and Mayor Tim Bradley requested federal assistance.
..... The riots cause looting, shootouts, arson and violence. At least 53 people were killed and 12,000 arrested.

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