Which presidents used the insurrection act
Executive summary
The Insurrection Act has been invoked intermittently since the early republic, with sources counting roughly 30 separate invocations over U.S. history and attributing those uses to somewhere between 15 and 17 presidents depending on counting conventions [1] [2] [3]. Notable commanders‑in‑chief who deployed the Act or federal troops under its authority include George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and George H.W. Bush, among others [4] [5] [6] [7].
1. What the Insurrection Act authorizes and how historians count uses
The Insurrection Act of 1807 authorizes the president to federalize the militia or deploy the U.S. military to suppress insurrections, enforce federal law, or protect constitutional rights when civilian authorities cannot do so—an explicit statutory exception to the Posse Comitatus Act [8] [4]. Scholars and watchdogs report roughly 30 incidents in which the statute has been invoked across U.S. history, but the number of presidents involved varies by source because some compilations aggregate multiple proclamations by the same president as single entries and a few contested actions are sometimes counted or excluded [1] [2].
2. Which presidents are commonly listed as having used the Act
Primary historical accounts and legal guides list early presidents George Washington and John Adams as users in response to state rebellions, Thomas Jefferson as an early 1808 user, Andrew Jackson during Nat Turner’s rebellion, Abraham Lincoln at the outbreak of the Civil War, and Ulysses S. Grant repeatedly in Reconstruction against the Ku Klux Klan [4] [5] [6]. In the 20th century, presidents who invoked the Act to enforce civil‑rights orders and quell unrest include Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, while the most recent formal invocation was by George H.W. Bush during the 1992 Los Angeles unrest [7] [4] [9].
3. Patterns and prominent individual tallies
Some presidencies produced multiple invocations: Ulysses S. Grant is documented as invoking the Act a record six times during Reconstruction to combat white supremacist violence [6], and Lyndon B. Johnson invoked it multiple times in 1968 amid riots after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, including deployments to Baltimore, Chicago and Washington [10]. Over the longer arc of history, the statute was used in labor disputes, to suppress rebellions, and later to enforce desegregation and protect civil‑rights protesters [8] [4].
4. Modern controversies: threats vs. formal use
Recent administrations have prompted renewed public attention: President Donald Trump publicly threatened to invoke the Act in 2020 and again in later episodes to deploy troops to U.S. cities, but reporting indicates those threats did not culminate in formal invocation and experts noted such uses would be unprecedented in certain contexts—particularly deploying troops to quell protests that began after federal officers were already present [11] [12] [6]. Commentators and organizations caution that modern threats to use the statute are politically charged and that the law’s broad language has prompted proposals to restrict presidential authority [8].
5. Bottom line and limits of available reporting
In short, a core group of early republic, Reconstruction, mid‑20th century civil‑rights and late 20th‑century presidents formally used the Insurrection Act—sources cite roughly 15–17 presidents across approximately 30 invocations, with the last formal invocation by George H.W. Bush in 1992—while recent presidents have threatened but not formally executed new invocations as of the latest reporting [2] [1] [9] [11]. This summary is constrained to the cited reporting; comprehensive name‑by‑name tallies differ across authoritative lists (Brennan Center, AP, Wikipedia) and readers seeking a definitive roster should consult primary proclamations and the Brennan Center’s invocation guide for the event‑level record [1] [13] [2].