Martial Law

Martial Law, sometimes defined as merely the will of the commanding general or whatever is necessary to preserve governmental authority, is the temporary control by military authorities of the civilian population in a particular area. Its application is generally to battle zones during war or areas of great or potentially great public disturbance in peacetime.

Americans rejected martial law in the Declaration of Independence, indicting George III for having put colonial Massachusetts under control of the British army. The U.S. Constitution limited the federal government's application of martial law by the provision in Article I, section 9, concerning the right of habeas corpus.

After 1798, the new government differentiated between military law and martial law. The former are the rules that govern members of the armed forces. The latter is the mechanism under which the military governs civilians. Martial law by federal authorities was viewed as permissible only under extraordinary circumstances which, as with suspension of habeas corpus, presumed congressional authorization.

Martial law was imposed by U.S. forces briefly on New Orleans during the War of 1812 and on areas of Mexico occupied by the U.S. Army during the Mexican War. But it became a major issue in the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln and the Union army used it in various states to restrain behavior by civilians both in the war zones and eventually in areas far removed from battle such as Ohio and Indiana. This virtual independence of military courts from supervision by civilian courts raised troubling questions; after the war, the U.S. Supreme Court in Ex Parte Milligan (1866) severely limited its application by the federal government and precluded it where civil courts functioned. Although martial law has been declared by state governors for areas hit by natural disasters or extensive violence, the federal government, with the exception of the treatment of the Japanese Americans on the West Coast in World War II, has seldom used martial law in the United States in the twentieth century.
[See also Civil‐Military Relations: Civilian Control of the Military; Civil‐Military Relations: Military Government and Occupation; Japanese‐American Internment Cases; Justice, Military: Military Courts; Merryman, Ex Parte; Supreme Court; War, and the Military.]

Bibliography

James E. Sefton , The U.S. Army and Reconstruction, 1967.
Robin Higham, ed., Bayonets in the Streets: The Use of Troops in Civil Disturbances, 1969.
Robert W. Coakley , The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders, 1789–1878, 1988.
Paul L. Murphy, ed., The Bill of Rights and American Legal History, 1990.
Mark E. Neely, Jr. , The Fate of Liberty: Abraham Lincoln and Civil Liberties, 1991.
Clayton D. Laurie , The Role of Federal Military Forces in Domestic Disorders, 1879–1945, 1993.

Paul L. Murphy