Why did Governor John Peter Altgeld object to President Cleveland's use of federal troops?

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Governor John Peter Altgeld objected to President Grover Cleveland’s deployment of federal troops during the Pullman Strike primarily because he viewed the intervention as "unjustifiable."1

Altgeld believed that the federal government had not been correctly informed about the situation in Illinois, as the state militia was already actively managing the unrest and appeared fully capable of handling the circumstances. By sending federal troops into Chicago, President Cleveland bypassed state authority, a move that Altgeld considered an improper intrusion into a matter that the state was already addressing. Despite Altgeld's repeated protests, the federal government maintained that the strike constituted a "reign of terror" that necessitated federal intervention to protect interstate commerce and ensure the movement of trains.1