Fifteen U.S. presidents have formally invoked the Insurrection Act, for a total of around 30 separate uses.

Quick Scoop

The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a federal law that allows a president to deploy the U.S. military and federalize the National Guard on domestic soil in specific emergencies, such as rebellion, widespread violence, or obstruction of federal law. Over more than two centuries, it has been used relatively rarely compared with the total number of presidents, which is why modern claims that “about 50% of presidents” have used it are somewhat misleading.

How many presidents have used it?

Most legal and historical tallies converge on this core fact:

  • About 15 presidents have invoked the Insurrection Act since 1807.
  • The law has been invoked around 30 times in total, often clustered during periods of civil war, Reconstruction, major labor unrest, and the civil rights era.
  • The last invocation was in 1992 , when President George H. W. Bush used it during the Los Angeles riots after the Rodney King verdict.

This means that “nearly half” of all presidents have used it is only roughly true if one rounds up from about one‑third to one‑half, depending on whether one counts a few edge cases and how one defines “use.”

Notable presidents who invoked it

Some of the better‑known invocations include:

  • Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War, when he called up militia forces following the secession of Southern states.
  • Ulysses S. Grant , who used it multiple times in the 1870s to suppress white supremacist violence and early Ku Klux Klan activity in the post–Civil War South.
  • Grover Cleveland , Woodrow Wilson , and Warren G. Harding during intense labor conflicts like the Pullman strike and coal miner uprisings.
  • Dwight D. Eisenhower , John F. Kennedy , and Lyndon B. Johnson to enforce desegregation orders and protect civil rights protesters in the 1950s and 1960s.
  • George H. W. Bush in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots, the most recent use.

These episodes are often cited in current forum discussions and news pieces whenever the Insurrection Act returns to the spotlight as a trending topic tied to debates over presidential power and domestic deployment of troops.

Why is this a trending discussion now?

In recent years and into the mid‑2020s, the Insurrection Act has resurfaced frequently in political debates, talk shows, and online forums, usually around questions like:

  • Whether a president could use it to respond to large protests, riots, or border‑security situations.
  • Claims from political figures that “about half of presidents” have used it, which fact‑checkers note overstates the case; the more accurate figure is in the mid‑teens out of more than 45 presidents.

Because it has a powerful symbolic weight—deploying military forces at home—any suggestion of using it tends to generate strong opinions, fact‑checks, and heated forum threads, keeping “how many presidents have used the Insurrection Act” a recurring, highly searchable phrase.

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