# Martial Law **Martial law** is the displacement of civilian government by military authority: soldiers in place of courts, police and elected officials. It is not defined anywhere in the U.S. Constitution or the U.S. Code, and **no federal statute authorizes a president to declare it.** The phrase is often used in political rhetoric as if it meant any domestic military deployment, and that confusion hides how rare and how legally fragile the real thing is. ## What it is not The ordinary statutory routes to domestic military force stop short of it: - The [[Insurrection Act]] lets troops **assist in enforcing the law**. It does not suspend civilian courts or hand governance to officers. - Federalizing the [[National Guard]] under 10 U.S.C. § 12406 changes who commands the unit, not who governs. See [[National Guard Federalization Flow]] and [[Trump v. Illinois]] (Dec. 2025), where the Supreme Court refused to let a § 12406 deployment in Illinois proceed. - Suspending [[Habeas Corpus]] is a separate power. The [[Suspension Clause]] (Art. I, § 9) places it in Congress's article. The 2025 deployments to Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago were fights over these statutes, not martial law, even when critics used the phrase. ## The American record - **1815, New Orleans.** [[Andrew Jackson]] kept martial law in force after the battle. When a federal judge issued a writ of habeas corpus, Jackson had him arrested. The judge later fined him $1,000, which Congress refunded in 1844. - **1862.** [[Abraham Lincoln]] proclaimed that people "guilty of any disloyal practice" were subject to martial law and military trial. - **[[Ex parte Milligan]] (1866).** This is the controlling rule. Military commissions may not try civilians where the civil courts are open and functioning. "Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open." - **Hawaii, 1941–44.** The territory was placed under military government after Pearl Harbor. *Duncan v. Kahanamoku* (1946) held the military trials of civilians unlawful, applying *Milligan* two years too late to help anyone. - **The states.** Governors have declared martial law far more often than presidents, usually in labor disputes. [[Sterling v. Constantin]] (1932) held that a governor's declaration does not end judicial review when military measures override federal rights. ## The 2020 near-miss The idea entered modern right-wing politics after the 2020 election. On Dec. 17, 2020, [[Michael Flynn]] said on Newsmax that the President could "take military capabilities" and place them in swing states to "basically rerun" the election. The next evening, Flynn and [[Sidney Powell]] were in an Oval Office meeting where, according to multiple outlets, invoking martial law and seizing voting machines were discussed and opposed by senior staff. Trump denied it: "Martial law = Fake News." The [[Jan. 6 Committee]] later questioned Flynn about the meeting, and he invoked the Fifth Amendment. See [[Stop the Steal Timeline]]. ## The international comparison On Dec. 3, 2024, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol declared martial law and sent troops to the National Assembly. Lawmakers got into the chamber and voted it down, and it lasted about six hours. He was impeached and removed. On **Feb. 19, 2026**, the Seoul Central District Court sentenced him to **life in prison** for leading an insurrection. The court said that sending armed troops to parliament and trying to make arrests "constitute acts of insurrection." It is the clearest recent case of a democracy treating a martial-law attempt as a crime rather than a policy dispute. See [[South Korea]]. ## See also - [[Emergency Powers]] · [[Emergency Powers Crosswalk]] · [[National Emergencies Act]] - [[Insurrection Act]] · [[Posse Comitatus Act]] · [[National Guard Federalization Flow]] · [[Trump v. Illinois]] - [[Ex parte Milligan]] · [[Sterling v. Constantin]] · [[Habeas Corpus]] · [[Suspension Clause]] - [[Kent State Shootings]] · [[Seven Days in May]]