Ever wonder about martial law and the United States? Here’s the Brennan Center For Justice:
… martial law — a term that generally refers to the displacement of civilian authorities by the military — can be and has been employed in the United States. Indeed, federal and state officials have declared martial law at least 68 times over the course of U.S. history. Yet the concept has never been well understood. The Constitution does not mention martial law, and no act of Congress defines it. The Supreme Court has addressed it on only a handful of occasions, and the Court’s reasoning in these decisions is inconsistent and vague. The precedents are also old: the most recent one … was decided almost 75 years ago.
I had no idea that we’re nearly to seventy, but then we’re not a young, upstart country any longer.
This report aims to clear up the confusion that surrounds martial law. To do so, it draws on recent legal scholarship, the few rules that can be gleaned from Supreme Court precedent, and general principles of constitutional law. It concludes that under current law, the president lacks any authority to declare martial law. Congress might be able to authorize a presidential declaration of martial law, but this has not been conclusively decided. State officials do have the power to declare martial law, but their actions under the declaration must abide by the U.S. Constitution and are subject to review in federal court.
It sounds as if the legal niceties are nicely balanced, at least theoretically. I note this due to the occasional call for President Trump to impose martial law in order to make it easier for him to steal the election.
I suspect an actual attempt would end with President Trump sitting in a jail cell. The military doesn’t have much of a sense of humor.
But Georgia remains on many minds, now doesn’t it?
States’ use of martial law continued well into the 20th century, reaching a peak in the 1930s — a decade that also saw an increase in the flagrant abuse of this power by governors. In 1933, for example, Georgia Governor Eugene Talmadge declared martial law “in and around” the headquarters building of the state Highway Board as part of a scheme to force out some of the board’s commissioners, whom he had no legal power to remove. This “coup de highway department” was ultimately successful. Remarkably, Talmadge’s successor, Governor Eurith Rivers, tried to do the same thing in 1939, but his attempt failed.
Georgia governors appear to have a long and blotchy history.
And that “Latin writer” would be, of course, Martial, a poet of Rome, who I actually read in translation once. I don’t remember a word. But he was mentioned today in Max Miller’s Tasting History segment on globi.
