which presidents have used the insurrection act

Several U.S. presidents have invoked the Insurrection Act, but it is much rarer than many online comments suggest, and fewer than half of all presidents have actually used it. It has most often been used to respond to major rebellions, violent unrest, or to enforce civil rights and desegregation orders when local authorities would not act.

What the Insurrection Act Is

The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to deploy federal troops (and federalize the National Guard) on U.S. soil in limited situations such as insurrection, obstruction of federal law, or denial of constitutional rights when local authorities cannot or will not protect those rights. It is an exception to the general rule that the military cannot be used for domestic law enforcement under the Posse Comitatus Act.

Presidents Who Have Used It

Historically, the Insurrection Act (or its earlier statutory predecessors) has been invoked by a series of presidents across two centuries. Key examples include:

• Thomas Jefferson – Used the law soon after it was passed to respond to widespread violations of the Embargo Act of 1807 around Lake Champlain.

• Andrew Jackson – Invoked it multiple times, including in response to a slave rebellion in Southampton County, Virginia, and to unrest related to border and labor disputes.

• Abraham Lincoln – Invoked it in 1861 to call up militia forces at the outbreak of the Civil War after Southern secession.

• Ulysses S. Grant – Used it repeatedly during Reconstruction to combat white supremacist violence and coups in Southern states, including actions against the Ku Klux Klan and armed insurgents in Louisiana and Arkansas.

• Rutherford B. Hayes – Invoked it during the 1877 national railroad strike and in response to violent conflict in New Mexico’s Lincoln County.

• Chester A. Arthur – Used it to respond to gang violence in the Arizona Territory.

• Grover Cleveland – Invoked it during anti‑Chinese riots in the Pacific Northwest and to break the nationwide Pullman railroad strike in 1894 over the objections of Illinois’ governor.

• Woodrow Wilson – Used it to suppress a violent labor uprising in Colorado’s coal fields in 1914.

• Warren G. Harding – Invoked it in 1921 to quell a large coal miners’ uprising in West Virginia (the Battle of Blair Mountain).

• Franklin D. Roosevelt – Used it to respond to the 1943 race riot in Detroit.

• Dwight D. Eisenhower – Invoked it in 1957 to enforce school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas, by federalizing the Arkansas National Guard and sending in federal troops to protect the “Little Rock Nine.”

• John F. Kennedy – Used it several times to enforce federal desegregation orders, including at the University of Mississippi in 1962 and the University of Alabama and other Alabama schools in 1963.

• Lyndon B. Johnson – Invoked it to protect civil rights marchers in Alabama in 1965 and to respond to major urban unrest, including the 1967 Detroit riot and the 1968 riots after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

• Ronald Reagan – Used it in 1987 to deal with a violent prison uprising by Cuban detainees in Atlanta.

• George H. W. Bush – Invoked it in 1989 to restore order after looting in the U.S. Virgin Islands following Hurricane Hugo, and again in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots after the acquittal of officers who beat Rodney King.

Special note: One prominent list also mentions an instance in which Army Gen. Douglas MacArthur effectively invoked similar authority without proper legal basis to disperse the Bonus Army of World War I veterans in 1932, which is often described as an improper or “illegal” use of the statute.

How Many Presidents, Really?

Modern legal and fact‑checking analyses generally agree that around 15–17 presidents have invoked the Insurrection Act or its direct predecessors, which is less than half of all U.S. presidents. Some political rhetoric has claimed that “about half” of presidents have used it, but detailed historical tallies show this is an exaggeration.

Why It’s a Trending Topic

In recent years, the Insurrection Act has come up in debates about protests, riots, immigration enforcement, and election‑related unrest, leading to renewed public interest in when and how earlier presidents used it. Fact‑checkers and legal organizations have published explainers and timelines to clarify its history and counter misleading claims about how common its use really has been.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.