The Insurrection Act gives American presidents the power to deploy active duty soldiers to maintain or restore peace in times of crisis. The Insurrection Act was invoked many times in the 20th century, including when Dwight D. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division to enforce the desegregation of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas.
But the origins of the Insurrection Act date back over 200 years to a strange chapter in American history – when Aaron Burr plotted to raise an army and establish his own dynasty in Louisiana or Mexico.
Burr, a decorated revolutionary war officer and senator from New York, was vice president during the first term of Thomas Jefferson. Burr had great political aspirations, but they were wiped out after killing his rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel in 1804.
After a duel with Hamilton, Burr heads for Louisiana
Even though the duel was illegal, Burr was never arrested or tried for the murder of Hamilton, but it did end Burr’s political career. With no prospects in Washington, D.C. or New York, Burr set his sights on the West, namely the newly acquired Louisiana territory and the lands belonging to Mexico in the southwest.
The details of Burr’s plot were never clear, but that involved assembling an army to invade Mexico on the pretext of a war with Spain, and then keeping the land conquered for him. Burr thought he had an ally with General James Wilkenson, commander of the U.S. military and first governor of Louisiana, but when rumors of Burr’s plot leaked to the newspapers, Wilkenson turned on his co -conspirator.
In a letter sent on October 21, 1806, Wilkenson disclosed the details of the intrigue to Jefferson without mentioning Burr by name. But Jefferson was already concerned enough about Burr’s strange activities that Jefferson had sent his own letter to Secretary of State James Madison asking if the Constitution gave him the power to deploy the military to stop a rebellion.
In response, Madison said no. “It does not appear that regular troops can be employed, under any contrary legal provision. insurrections, “wrote Madison,” but only agst. shipments having foreign countries for the purpose. “
Jefferson and Madison were both strict interpreters of the Constitution and would not dare to exercise authority that was not explicitly written in the founding document, so they had to convince Congress to give Jefferson this power. And to do this, they first needed proof of Burr’s plot. This is where Wilkenson’s letter comes in.
“Jefferson was looking for a legitimate source of authority over Burr’s plot and he was ready to believe Wilkenson, even if historians suggest that Jefferson damn knew that Wilkenson was a liar with his own suspicious reputation,” said John Fea, professor of history at Messiah College. “But Jefferson needed a source to get things done to try to stop Burr, who was his biggest fear.”
Jefferson orders capture of Burr
Armed with Wilkenson’s “evidence”, Jefferson issued a proclamation on November 27, 1806 which exposed the conspiracy and enjoined all military, state and federal officers to “exercise vigilance … in the search for and conviction of all persons engaged or concerned in such an enterprise, by seizing and detaining, subject to the provision of the law, all ships, weapons, military stores or other means provided or anticipating the latter and, in general, preventing the pursuit of this expedition or enterprise by all legal means in their power. “
“Jefferson essentially puts a bounty on Burr’s head,” says Fea, and in a matter of weeks, an Ohio militia seized boats belonging to Burr’s rag army and attacked a private island on the Ohio River. which served as a military camp.
But Burr escaped capture and rumors continued to swirl that he was recruiting soldiers en route to Louisiana territory and seeking help from Britain to establish his derivative nation in the West. Jefferson has always refused to deploy the permanent US military to hunt down Burr and quash the rebellion once and for all, a reluctance that has been ridiculed by his political enemies, the federalists.
“Jefferson, to his credit, says I’m not going to act unless the Constitution says I can act,” says Fea. “Federalists have a much broader view of the Constitution. If the Constitution does not condemn it outright, then that’s fine. “
Jefferson stuck to his principles and, in December 1806, asked Congress to pass a bill “authorizing the establishment of US land or naval forces. in the event of an insurrection. “This law, known as the Insurrection Act, would take another three months to become law. When it was finally signed on March 3, 1807, Aaron Burr had already been in detention for 11 days.
So while the Insurrection Act was written expressly to foil Burr’s plot, it was not used to capture it. The very first time that the Insurrection Act was invoked was a year later, in 1808, when American merchant ships in the Great Lakes flouted Jefferson’s trade embargo with the British. In response, Jefferson accused rogue traders of “forming uprisings against the rule of law in the United States” and authorized the military to take action.
When was the insurgency law invoked?
Minnijean Brown, 15, one of the Little Rock Nine, arrives outside Central High School, as members of the 101st Division of Airborne Command ready to protect them, on the orders of President Dwight Eisenhower, in Little Rock, Arkansas, September 25, 1957.
A. Y. Owen / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty Images
Since 1807, the law on insurgency has been amended several times to meet different political challenges.
In 1861 Abraham Lincoln broadened the law to form the legal basis for waging the Civil War. Otherwise, he would not have had the power to send federal troops to a state without the permission of the governor.
After the Civil War, the Insurgency Law was amended to give the President the power to implement the 14th Amendment and the conditions for reconstruction in the South. This authority is now found in Section 253 of Title 10 of the United States Code, which gives the President the right to take military action within a state when “a part or class of its people is deprived of a right , privilege, immunity or protection as provided for in the Constitution and guaranteed by law, and the incorporated authorities of that State cannot, fail to refuse, or refuse to protect, grant, or grant that right, privilege or immunity. “
It is the same authority invoked in the era of civil rights by Presidents Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson to deploy troops in the South to enforce desegregation in contempt of the governors of Arkansas, Mississippi and Alabama.
The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992 when President George HW Bush mobilized thousands of federal soldiers in Los Angeles to restore order during widespread riots following a “not guilty” verdict “for white police accused of beating black motorist Rodney King. This time the President deployed the military at the request of California Governor Pete Wilson. The law was amended in 2006 to broaden the scope under which the president can invoke the law, after criticism of the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina.
