Which specific presidential actions are listed among the roughly 30 invocations of the Insurrection Act?
Executive summary
Across roughly 230 years, presidents have invoked the Insurrection Act about 30 times for a range of crises—from full-scale rebellion to racial violence, labor disputes, and episodes of civil unrest—and those invocations include high‑profile actions by Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, and George H.W. Bush, among others [1] [2] [3]. The historical record shows the Act has been used both to fight secessionary insurrection and, more often in later years, to enforce federal rights or restore order when state authorities were unwilling or unable to act [3] [4].
1. Andrew Jackson: slave rebellions and regional disturbances
Andrew Jackson is recorded as invoking the Act multiple times in the 1830s, including responses to Nat Turner’s slave rebellion in 1831 and a separate 1834 labor dispute in Maryland, making Jackson among the earliest presidents to use the statute to send federal force into states to suppress violent uprisings and restore order [2] [5].
2. Abraham Lincoln: Civil War legal footing
President Abraham Lincoln relied on the Insurrection Act in 1861 as the legal basis for federal operations against seceding Southern states—literally equating invocation with starting a domestic military campaign against an organized rebellion and thus the Act’s archetypal “insurrection” use [2] [3].
3. Ulysses S. Grant and Reconstruction-era interventions
During Reconstruction President Ulysses S. Grant invoked the Act repeatedly—at least eight times by some accounts—to confront white supremacist violence (including Klan activity) and protect Black citizens’ rights, illustrating how post‑Civil War administrations used the law to enforce federal authority and civil rights in hostile states [2] [5].
4. Mid‑20th century: enforcing civil‑rights and federal orders
During the civil‑rights era presidents used the Act less as a blunt instrument and more to enforce constitutional rights when local governments failed to protect them: Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered federal troops into Little Rock to enforce school desegregation, while both John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson sent troops to multiple cities in the 1960s amid violent clashes and riots—moves framed as protecting rights or restoring order rather than suppressing insurrection per se [5] [3].
5. 1992 Los Angeles riots: George H.W. Bush’s last invocation
The most recent actual invocation came in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush federalized forces to help restore order after the Los Angeles riots following the Rodney King verdict—an invocation that underscores the Act’s modern role as a response to large‑scale urban violence and a breakdown in local capacity to protect life and property [6] [7].
6. Patterns: deployments, threats, and legal limits
The Brennan Center’s guide emphasizes that “invocation” has covered a spectrum—from mere proclamations and federalizing the National Guard to deploying active‑duty troops—and that not every invocation led to boots on the ground; sometimes the threat alone resolved a crisis [1] [6]. Legal commentators and civil‑liberties groups note the Act has been used in three core scenarios: at a governor’s request, to enforce federal law when states cannot, or to suppress an outright insurrection—while contemporary threats to invoke it (for example by President Trump in several instances) have often been met with legal, political, and constitutional pushback [3] [4] [8].
7. What the list of ~30 invocations tells us—and what it doesn’t
The catalogue of roughly 30 invocations is a mix of wartime, Reconstruction, civil‑rights enforcement, riot control, and labor‑oriented responses; it therefore resists a simple characterization as only “martial” or only “protective” uses, and historians caution that statutory language like “insurrection” remains vague so presidential motives and context matter in assessing each entry [1] [9]. The sources used here document many named examples but the Brennan Center guide and historical lists are the primary compendia for the complete roster of roughly 30 episodes [1] [10].