How many times has the US Insurrection Act been enacted?

1. What the question really asks: invocation versus origin

Asking “how many times has the Insurrection Act been enacted?” usually intends “how many times has it been invoked” because the statute itself was enacted once (signed in 1807, building on 1792 militia laws) but applied repeatedly thereafter; sources repeatedly describe a single law passed in 1807 with antecedents in 1792 and later amendments, not multiple enactments of the statute itself ^{[4] [1] [5]}.

2. The widely cited tally: about 30 invocations

Authoritative trackers and legal centers report that presidents have used the Act in roughly 30 crises over more than two centuries; the Brennan Center’s guide lists 30 incidents and frames that total as covering “230 years” of applications, and Britannica similarly reports “more than 30” official invocations ^{[2] [3]}. Multiple news outlets and advocacy groups repeat that benchmark when explaining modern threats or presidential rhetoric, using it as the accepted historical baseline ^{[6] [7]}.

3. Why counts vary: disputed entries and counting rules

The discrepancy around an exact number stems from methodological choices: some compendia present multiple proclamations during one episode as separate invocations, others collapse related proclamations into a single entry, and some incidents often thought of as “uses” did not follow statutory prerequisites and are flagged as “often regarded as uses” rather than formal invocations—Brennan Center’s guide explicitly highlights these distinctions ^[2]. Legal scholars and reporters therefore hedge with “about” or “more than” 30 because the historical record includes gray-area decisions and shifting statutory language over time ^{[1] [2]}.

4. Typical contexts for invocation: Reconstruction to civil rights to unrest

Historically the Act has been used in three broad scenarios: to suppress outright rebellion (Civil War–era actions tied to Lincoln’s stance), to enforce federal law and constitutional rights when state authorities failed or refused to act (Reconstruction and civil‑rights-era interventions), and to quell domestic violence or disorder—uses that span from early 19th-century rebellions through the 1950s–60s school desegregation crises and later riot responses ^{[6] [8] [4]}. Sources emphasize that amendments over the years changed when and how the president could act, affecting both practice and later counting ^[9].

5. Modern politics and the Act’s shadow

Recent administrations’ threats to invoke the Act have thrust the statute back into public view; reporting around January 2026 noted presidential threats to use it in Minneapolis, and commentators warned that such threats represent a contemporary turning point even if formal invocation remains rare ^{[8] [6] [7]}. Scholars quoted in contemporary reporting argue that the danger is less the statute’s existence than the normalization of invoking extraordinary powers—while civil‑rights enforcement invoked the Act to protect citizens, critics today see political incentives in threats to deploy the military for domestic policing ^{[5] [7]}.

6. Bottom line and limits of the record

The best-supported, widely cited figure is roughly 30 invocations across U.S. history, but that number is not a precise legal ledger; it reflects interpretive choices about what counts as an invocation and whether related proclamations are tallied separately—Brennan Center, Britannica, and advocacy trackers all converge on the “about 30” formulation while noting disputes and caveats ^{[2] [3] [7]}. This answer relies on those secondary compendia; if a definitive primary-source audit of every presidential proclamation and its statutory compliance exists, it was not supplied in the reporting reviewed here ^[2].