When has the Insurrection Act been invoked?

Pres. Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act (1807) in response to huge protests against his efforts to arrest and detain undocumented immigrants in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Insurrection Act is a federal law that authorizes U.S. presidents to deploy federal armed forces and nationalized state militias to put down or prevent insurrections that interfere with federal law enforcement or effectively deprive citizens of their rights under the U.S. Constitution. The act has been officially invoked more than 30 times since the law’s passage in 1807.

• 1808 Pres. Thomas Jefferson invoked the Insurrection Act to prevent violations of the Embargo Act of 1807, which prohibited shipping exports from U.S. ports.
• 1831–34 Pres. Andrew Jackson invoked the Insurrection Act to protect U.S. interests in response to a border dispute with Mexico, which was later peacefully resolved;
• 1861 Pres. Abraham Lincoln invoked the Insurrection Act to combat the secession of several Southern states at the start of the American Civil War.
• 1871–76 Pres. Ulysses S. Grant invoked the Insurrection Act a total of ten times for related reasons:

  1. five times to warn against or combat violent attacks in Southern states by members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK);
  2. once to prevent further violence against Black people by white mobs in Louisiana;
  3. once to prevent a repetition of the Vicksburg Massacre in Mississippi, in which many Black supporters of Peter Crosby, a Black sheriff who had been removed from office by whites, were killed;
  4. once to prevent further violent confrontations between supporters of two Republican candidates after a close gubernatorial election in Arkansas in 1872;
  5. once to expel white supremacists in New Orleans who had deposed the new governor in an attempt to take control of the state government of Louisiana; and
  6. once to prevent large white supremacist military groups in South Carolina from interfering in the state’s gubernatorial election of 1876.
• 1877–78 Pres. Rutherford B. Hayes invoked the Insurrection Act twice for different reasons:

  1. to assist state militias in West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland in their efforts to force participants in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 to return to work; and
  2. to end the Lincoln County War of 1878 in New Mexico, which involved violent confrontations between two political and business factions in the state.
• 1882 Pres. Chester A. Arthur invoked the Insurrection Act to end large-scale cattle thefts by local gangs and unlawful activities by groups of Native Americans in the Arizona Territory.
• 1885–94 Pres. Grover Cleveland invoked the Insurrection Act four times for related reasons:

  1. to protect Chinese immigrants in Seattle following the Tacoma Riot against Chinese immigrants in 1885;
  2. to again protect Chinese immigrants in Seattle following the Seattle Riot of 1886;
  3. to end the Pullman Strike of railroad workers in Chicago; and
  4. to end the Pullman Strike of railroad workers in other U.S. states and territories.
• 1914 Pres. Woodrow Wilson invoked the Insurrection Act to end a war-like conflict between striking Colorado mine workers and members of the Colorado National Guard.
• 1921 Pres. Warren G. Harding invoked the Insurrection Act to end a war-like conflict in West Virginia between coal miners and state police and their allies, thereby ensuring the victory of state forces.
• 1943 Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt invoked the Insurrection Act to end racial rioting involving Black and white residents and local police in Detroit, Michigan.
• 1957 Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act to ensure that Black students would not be prevented from attending a white high school in Alabama.
• 1962 Pres. John F. Kennedy invoked the Insurrection Act three times for related reasons:

  1. to end a violent siege against the first Black student of the University of Mississippi and his federal protectors;
  2. to prevent the governor of Alabama, George Wallace, from standing at the front door of the University of Alabama in order to physically prevent two Black students from registering at the school; and
  3. to end Wallace’s use of the Alabama National Guard to prevent Black students from attending white schools throughout the state.
• 1965–68 Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson invoked the Insurrection Act five times for related reasons:

  1. to protect civil rights advocates as they marched in Alabama;
  2. to put an end to violent racial confrontations in the Detroit Riot of 1967;
  3. to suppress riots in Washington, D.C. following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.;
  4. to suppress riots in Chicago following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.; and
  5. to suppress riots in Baltimore, Maryland following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
• 1987 Pres. Ronald Reagan invoked the Insurrection Act to end control of a U.S. penitentiary in Atlanta, Georgia by numerous Cubans who were held in custody and soon to be deported; and
• 1989–92 Pres. George H.W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act twice for different reasons:

  1. to end widespread criminal acts committed in the Virgin Islands in the wake of Hurricane Hugo; and
  2. to end race riots, fires, and lootings committed in Los Angeles following a jury’s acquittal (on all but four charges) of white police officers charged with brutally beating Rodney King.