Which specific presidents formally declared martial law and in what years?
Executive summary
Two presidents are routinely identified in the historical record as having put the United States under forms of martial rule: Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War (beginning in 1861) and Franklin D. Roosevelt in the wake of Pearl Harbor when martial law was imposed in the Territory of Hawaii (December 1941–October 1944) with territorial authorities acting under federal direction [1] [2] [3]. Major legal and scholarly treatments caution that formal, nationwide presidential declarations of martial law are rare, legally fraught, and—according to the Brennan Center’s research—have not been made by any president since the Civil War in a manner that courts uniformly upheld [4] [3].
1. Abraham Lincoln: martial measures during the Civil War (1861–1865)
Abraham Lincoln’s suspension of habeas corpus and the imposition of military control in border and rebellious areas at the outset and during the Civil War are widely described as the closest thing to a presidential declaration of martial law, beginning in 1861 and continuing through much of the war, and were the subject of landmark litigation (Ex parte Milligan) that found parts of those measures unconstitutional where civilian courts were open [5] [1] [6]. Legal histories note Lincoln’s use of military authority to arrest and detain suspected Confederate sympathizers and to supervise civil order in contested regions, but they also emphasize that the Supreme Court pushed back on the breadth of presidential martial measures after the war [5] [6].
2. Franklin D. Roosevelt and martial rule in Hawaii (December 1941–October 1944)
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, martial law was imposed in the Territory of Hawaii and remained in force for nearly three years; contemporary accounts and legal analyses attribute the territorial declaration to military and territorial officials but point to President Roosevelt’s approval or acquiescence of that federal-level imposition of military rule in a U.S. territory (December 7, 1941–October 24, 1944) [3] [2] [7]. The Brennan Center and other histories treat Hawaii’s wartime military governance as a federal instance of martial law in which civilian courts and many ordinary civil liberties were suspended, and scholars debate whether that amounted to a unilateral presidential “declaration” or a federal-territorial action operating within wartime exigency [3] [2].
3. What about other presidents often named in public debates? (Eisenhower, Johnson, Bush, Trump-era talk)
Several presidents invoked the Insurrection Act or federal troops to restore order—examples include Dwight Eisenhower in 1957, Lyndon Johnson during the 1960s, and George H.W. Bush during large-scale civil unrest—but legal commentators and DoJ histories emphasize that use of federal forces under the Insurrection Act is distinct from a formal declaration of martial law and, in those cases, no martial-law proclamation was issued [8] [9]. Recent public and media debates have amplified the notion that a president could simply declare nationwide martial law, but leading legal scholarship (Brennan Center) and contemporary reporting stress that such a move has not been lawfully or successfully made since Lincoln, and that most martial-law episodes in U.S. history were local, state, or military (not presidential) proclamations [4] [3].
4. Wider context, legal limits and recurring disagreements in the record
Historians and legal scholars concede ambiguity: courts have sometimes accepted necessity-based military authority where civil government collapsed, while other rulings and modern analyses argue a president lacks clear unilateral power to impose nationwide martial law today—Congress, the Insurrection Act, state governors, and military commanders have all played roles in the patchwork of U.S. martial-law practice [6] [10] [3]. The Brennan Center’s extensive review counts dozens of martial-law episodes across U.S. history but concludes that declarations by presidents have been effectively confined to Civil War measures and wartime territorial governance, with governors and military officers more frequently issuing local martial proclamations [3] [4].
5. Bottom line and limits of available evidence
The best-supported answer in the available reporting is that Abraham Lincoln (Civil War, beginning 1861) and the Roosevelt administration (Hawaii, December 1941–October 1944, via territorial/military authority with federal approval) are the principal presidential-era instances commonly labeled as presidential martial law; subsequent presidential deployments of troops under the Insurrection Act are not the same as formal presidential martial-law proclamations and did not produce nation‑wide, court‑upheld declarations [1] [2] [9] [4]. The contemporary legal consensus and the Brennan Center’s research caution that the president’s unilateral authority to declare martial law today is legally contested and historically rare [3] [4].