posse comitatus
I just learned it's illegal to deploy U.S. troops on U.S. soil. Obviously this doesn't apply to the National Guard in a state of emergency. Still, as troops are being recalled from Iraq and Afghanistan (for very good reason), I'm curious about the motivation behind and details of this 1878 law.
posted by Jessica @ 10:57 AM
3 Comments:
Basically, it was designed to prevent a military coup. The original intent was to keep the Union Army from swaying elections in the newly-rejoined Confederate states. The President can allow deploment in states of emergency; and of course the National Guard can deploy, as long as it's under supervision of the state, rather than federal government.
You have a birthday, and a baby with a fever, and this is the question you ask?
Yeharr
Well, yeah.
I was written directly after the Civil War because what Lincoln did was actually illegal. If states want to ceceed, they can, according to the Declaration of Independance, however, as the Declaration isn't actually part of our legal system, it's a little complicated. Anyway, the law was written to avoid another civil war or other such attrocity.
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