A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 7, part 2: Rutherford B. Hayes
History
A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents. Volume 7, part 2: Rutherford B. Hayes
Hayes, Rutherford Birchard, 1822-1893; Presidents -- United States; United States -- History -- Sources; United States -- Politics and government
That in all cases of insurrection or obstruction to the laws,
either of the United States or of any individual State or
Territory, where it is lawful for the President of the
United States to call forth the militia for the purpose of
suppressing such insurrection or of causing the laws to be
duly executed, it shall be lawful for him to employ for the
same purposes such part of the land or naval force of the
United States as shall be judged necessary, having first
observed all the prerequisites of the law in that respect.
By this act it will be seen that the scope of the law of 1795 was
extended so as to authorize the National Government to use not only
the militia, but the Army and Navy of the United States, in "causing
the laws to be duly executed."
The important provision of the acts of 1792, 1795, and 1807, modified
in its terms from time to time to adapt it to the existing emergency,
remained in force until, by an act approved by President Lincoln July
29, 1861, it was reenacted substantially in the same language in which
it is now found in the Revised Statutes, viz:
SEC. 5298. Whenever, by reason of unlawful obstructions,
combinations, or assemblages of persons, or rebellion against
the authority of the Government of the United States, it shall
become impracticable, in the judgment of the President, to
enforce by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings the
laws of the United States within any State or Territory, it
shall be lawful for the President to call forth the militia of
any or all the States and to employ such parts of the land and
naval forces of the United States as he may deem necessary
to enforce the faithful execution of the laws of the United
States or to suppress such rebellion, in whatever State
or Territory thereof the laws of the United States may be
forcibly opposed or the execution thereof forcibly obstructed.
This ancient and fundamental law has been in force from the foundation
of the Government. It is now proposed to abrogate it on certain days
and at certain places. In my judgment no fact has been produced which
tends to show that it ought to be repealed or suspended for a single
hour at any place in any of the States or Territories of the Union.
All the teachings of experience in the course of our history are in
favor of sustaining its efficiency unimpaired. On every occasion when
the supremacy of the Constitution has been resisted and the perpetuity
of our institutions imperiled the principle of this statute, enacted
by the fathers, has enabled the Government of the Union to maintain
its authority and to preserve the integrity of the nation.
At the most critical periods of our history my predecessors in the
executive office have relied on this great principle. It was on this
principle that President Washington suppressed the whisky rebellion in
Pennsylvania in 1794.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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