SkyDancer: OK, each state now has its National Guard. Can’t the president call them to national service and put down any rebellion by a state government?
MamaTexan: Constituionally, no. A State has to request assistance from or give permission to the federal government before the federal government can use military force inside the State.
Article 1 Section 8 Clause 15:
“The Congress shall have Power… To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;”
Article 4 section 4
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic Violence.”
I don’t know what laws or procedures Congress may have established regarding suppressing insurrections, but it looks like a request from the State is only needed in the case of domestic violence and that no such request is needed in the cases of invasion or insurrection. Mere domestic violence is pretty far from insurrection. “(R)ebellion by a state government” isn’t.
So what I’m thinking is if the state government acting on the wishes of its constituents decides to secede from the Union the federal government can invade the state to keep in in the Union against its will ... also by calling up that states militia? Therefor the government can say there’s an insurrection going on ....
I've given a legal source stating otherwise. Do you have any evidence to support your assertion?
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Mere domestic violence is pretty far from insurrection.
Domestic violence and insurrection ARE rebellion if those forces are turned against the lawful authority of the State.
Until a State requests assistance, the federal government has NO jurisdiction inside one of the respective States....period.