Word: martialled
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1930-1939
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
These emergency powers of the President and State Governors are kept within bounds by our constitutions. The founders had a strong dislike for martial law. They had become only too familiar with it at the hands of the British troops...
Consequently, the Rhode Island Constitution (Article 1, section 18) says: "The military shall be held in strict subordination to the civil authority. And the law martial shall be used and exercised in such cases only as occasion shall necessarily require...
Although the United States Constitution contains no such express limitation on martial law, the general provision, "No person shall . . . be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law", was held by the United States Supreme Court in the great case of Ex-Parto Milligan to make it, impossible for an earlier Governor of Rhode Island (General Burnside) to establish martial law, even during the Civil War, in a region (Indiana) which was not invaded by the enemy but completely free from disorder and in which the civil courts were quietly sitting...
These constitutional provisions allow a state governor a wide range of discretion, first, in deciding that the emergency exists which justifies martial law, and second in choosing the means to enforce order...
Consequently, state and federal courts have been very reluctant to upset declarations of martial law by state governors Judges, wisely recognize that the particular decisions about emergencies must usually be left to the Executive who wields the sword, without any control or advice from sedentary scholars on the benches...