Are these, it may be asked, the only cases in which Federal authority can interfere within the limits of a State to maintain order? Are law and order, i.e. the punishment of crimes and the enforcement of civil rights, left entirely to State authorities? The answer is:—
Offences against Federal statutes are justiciable in Federal courts, and punishable under Federal authority. There is no Federal common law of crimes.
Resistance offered to the enforcement of a Federal statute may be suppressed by Federal authority.
Attacks on the property of the Federal government may be repelled, and disturbances thence arising may be quelled by Federal authority.
The judgments pronounced in civil causes by Federal courts are executed by the officers of these courts.
All other offences and disorders whatsoever are left to be dealt with by the duly constituted authorities of the State, who are, however, entitled in one case to summon the power of the Union to their aid.
This case is that of the breaking out in a State of serious disturbances. The President is bound on the application of the State legislature or executive to quell such disturbances by the armed forces of the Union, or by directing the militia of another State to enter. Thus in 1794 Washington suppressed the so-called Whisky Insurrection in Pennsylvania by the militia of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland.[1] President Grant was obliged to use military force during the troubles which disturbed several of the Southern States after the Civil War; as was President Hayes, during the tumults in Pennsylvania caused by the great railway strikes of 1877. There have, however, been cases, such as the Dorr rebellion in Rhode Island in 1842,[2] in which a State has
- ↑ This was the first assertion by arms of the supreme authority of the Union, and produced an enormous effect upon opinion.
- ↑ President Tyler ordered the militia of Connecticut and Massachusetts to be prepared (in case a requisition came from the R. I. executive) to guard the frontier of Rhode Island against insurgents attempting to enter, and himself took steps for sending in (in case of need) U. S. regular troops, but the Rhode Island militia proved equal to the occasion and succeeded in suppressing Dorr.
approved by Congress. It has been doubted, however, whether the case could properly be deemed one of "domestic violence" within the meaning of Art. iv § 4 of the Constitution.
