Why do you think we haven’t done this in the past? What’s different about this Coronavirus than the bird flu or Ebola or zeeka?
I said it wouldn't be the first time government had to enforce federal laws and regulations within a state. Remember the Jim crow laws and the feds being forced to move in to protect the mixing of white and black students. The Seminole wars.
Martial law in the United States refers to several periods in United States history wherein a region or the United States as a whole were placed under the control of a military body. On a federal level, only the president has the power to impose martial law. In each state, the governor has the right to impose martial law within the borders of the state. In the United States, martial law has been used in a limited number of circumstances, such as New Orleans during the Battle of New Orleans; after major disasters, such as the Great Chicago Fire of 1871 or the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 or during riots, such as the Omaha race riot of 1919 or the 1920 Lexington riots; local leaders declared martial law to protect themselves from mob violence, such as Nauvoo, Illinois, during the Illinois Mormon War, or Utah during the Utah War; or in response to chaos associated with protests and rioting, such as the 1934 West Coast waterfront strike, in Hawaii after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and during the Civil Rights Movement in response to the Cambridge riot of 1963.
One of the very first incidents was under George Washington. To support federal power to enforce the law, Congress passed the Militia Law of 1792. This law allowed Congress to raise a militia to “execute the laws of the union, (and) suppress insurrections.”
The incident was known as Shay’s Whiskey Rebellion.
By July of 1794, the tension had reached a breaking point. Tax collectors were harassed, tarred and feathered; one’s home was burned. In Western Pennsylvania, the rebellion was intense. Reports told that six thousand people were camped outside Pittsburgh threatening to march on the town.
Washington believed he had to act. He and his cabinet members met with Pennsylvania officials. They decided to present evidence of the violence to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court James Wilson. After reviewing the evidence, Wilson certified that the situation could not be controlled by civil authorities alone. A military response could proceed.
On August 7, Washington issued a proclamation commanding all “insurgents” to “disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes.” He cited his authority under the 1792 Militia Act. But the rebellion continued. September 25, 1794, he issued another Proclamation which read in part,
“
… I, George Washington, President of the United States, in obedience to that high and irresistible duty consigned to me by the Constitution ‘to take care that the laws be faithfully executed,’ … do hereby declare and make known that… a militia…force which…is adequate to the exigency is already is motion…”
Washington recruited militia members from Pennsylvania as well as nearby Maryland and New Jersey.
(This would be like our national guard of today until other military personnel could reinforce them)
In total, there were almost 13,000 men—about as many as had served in the entire Continental Army that defeated the British. Washington personally led the troops into Bedford—the first and only time a sitting US President has led troops into the field.
By the end of November, more than 150 people had been arrested; most were later freed due to lack of evidence. Two were convicted of treason, but Washington later pardoned them. Washington’s strong response to the Whiskey Rebellion became, as future-President James Madison put it, “
a lesson to every part of the Union against disobedience to the laws.”
Of course this has two sides. If you was a true believer in the rebellion then the government puts the foot down on you. You would see them as tyrants. It comes down to is the government protecting the people or not. If the government is in fact looking for any excuse to lock down its citizens to bring forth something against the constitution then we should be alarmed but until that day we must remember this is temporary and it will pass. The government wants it to go back to normal just as much as we do because a global recession hurts everyone and a global pandemic hurts everyone.