United States Congress Quotes
… it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress ; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section and any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both such fine and imprisonment.
U. S. Congress, Posse Comitatus Act, Originally passed in 1878 and amended thereafter
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
It is this law that prohibits the military from enforcing laws ranging from immigration violations to illicit drug interdiction. This type of prohibition is quite rare in the history of nations and many credit it with making sure that the military is always under the control of the civilian government. Coups detat in the world often begin by a military unit arresting the civilian officials on the grounds that they violated some law.
The Army actually violated the laws of West Virginia as well as the Constitutional rights of thousands of people. The justification was that there was a labor dispute in the West Virginia mines and there had been some violence. Capt. Morgan was one of three military officers of a military court which actually took over and assumed absolute control of the strike district. They army broke many more laws than they enforced.
Nixon was considering not obeying Federal Court orders. The Federal Marshals would be responsible for enforcing the courts orders. This quotation illustrates how closely the nation came to a virtual civil war or putch.
While most modern armies treat officers and enlisted men who desert equally or even favor the officers, the Visigoths made desertion by an officer the severest of crimes. A centurion was the officer in charge of 100 men. There were 10 decurians (leaders of 10) under him, They were the modern equivalent of the Sergeants—non-commissioned officers. Their penalty for desertion was only the paying of a heavy fine. It was the officers who had to set the example. This set of laws is the most formalized and sophisticated compendium of laws of the so-called “barbaric peoples” of Europe. The compilation was in many ways a documentation of the traditional laws of the Visigoths that had evolved over hundreds of years.
The South had a tradition of lynching even before Reconstructon. Southern Leaders like Jefferson encouraged and justified the heinous practice. In the West there was a good bit of vigilantism justified by the fact that there was no functioning legal system and few law enforcement officers. But Jefferson and many other Southerners, although there was a law enforcement system except in the most rural areas, advocated lynching as a combination of vengeance and other emotions that are hard to identify.
The president was asked if he supported the Supreme court's school desegregation decision:
The United States Congress is the bicameral legislature of the federal government of the United States consisting of two chambers: the Senate and the House of Representatives. The Congress meets in the Capitol in Washington, D.C. Both senators and representatives are chosen through direct election, though vacancies in the Senate may be filled by a gubernatorial appointment. Members are usually affiliated to the Republican Party or to the Democratic Party, and only rarely to a third party or as independents. Congress has 535 voting members: 435 Representatives and 100 Senators.; A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different nations, constituent states, independent organizations, or groups.
