Deploying Troops to American Cities Is an Assault on the Constitution

Every American who is concerned about the state of our liberties ought to find harrowing President Donald Trump’s recent declaration that the National Guard is now in place in Portland, Oregon. As he wrote on social media, the goal is to restore law and order as “conditions continue to deteriorate into lawless mayhem.”

There are some protests against ICE’s increasingly abusive raids and detentions, but this is nothing more than a pretext to exert federal control over cities. I’m in Portland regularly, and it’s one of the nation’s most placid and safest big cities. Protests have at times been unruly over the years, but are well within the ability of local police to control.

This is problematic. For starters, the president is vastly exaggerating the nature of the protests. “While Democrat politicians deny reality, it’s obvious what’s happening in Portland isn’t protest; it’s premeditated anarchy that has scarred the city for years – leaving officers battered, citizens terrorized, and property defaced,” he posted. People living there have no idea what he’s talking about, given that, as usual, his claims are far afield from reality.

We should all be fearful when politicians exaggerate problems to grab more power. And it’s not just Portland. Trump previously deployed National Guard and Marines to Los Angeles and is threatening to do so in Chicago and Memphis. The president’s declared reason—to tamp down on protests—should raise the hair on everyone’s neck. He also suggested federal troops would target crime problems.

In his speech to the nation’s generals, Trump said, “We should use some of the dangerous cities as training grounds” for military intervention, as he prattled about a “war from within.” That’s authoritarian bluster of the sort heard in despotisms. Note the support or eerie silence from limited-government, constitutional conservatives who spent years warning us about government oppression.

These are also direct assaults on three conservative principles. First, the First Amendment upholds every American’s right to protest the government’s policies. Every state and city has the tools necessary to deal with protests that become less than peaceful. It’s hard to imagine a more aggressive threat to our traditional free-speech rights. It smacks of intimidation.

Second, Republicans have traditionally espoused the principle of local control. The Tenth Amendment is clear: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” As the Congressional Western Caucus explains, “local governments are better suited to deal with local issues than a distant, out-of-touch federal government.”

If Republicans believe in leaving matters up to local officials rather than an out-of-touch federal behemoth, they should be leery of using federal troops to handle local policing matters. It’s just the latest example of how conservatives only believe in these constitutional principles when their foes are in power—and quickly abandon them once they control the federal apparatus.

Third, the nation’s founders were fixated on controlling the national government’s ability to deploy standing armies for the obvious reason that the British crown did so to pummel its American subjects into submission.

Most of the Constitution is simply stated: “Congress shall make no law…” But the Second Amendment is awkwardly worded (at least to modern eyes): “A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” The amendment’s strange syntax has remained a source of legal and philosophical debate. The language was as much about controlling standing armies as gun ownership.

Its intent was better expressed in Pennsylvania’s 1776 Declaration of Rights: “That the people have a right to bear arms for the defense of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.”

Overall, the founders wanted to limit the ability of the feds to use military forces against civilians at home. If the Constitution wasn’t clear enough, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 directly bans the authorities from using federal troops for civilian law enforcement unless authorized by Congress.

Trump’s efforts to use federal troops on U.S. soil is an affront to our nation’s Constitution and subsequent legal system. Legalities aside, every freedom-loving American should be appalled by the images of masked federal agents grabbing people at courthouses, tackling elderly citizens, roughing up reporters, and marching down city streets.

Portlanders have posted funny photos of the “chaos” in their city, which includes people strolling through parks and lining up to buy homemade bread at farmers’ markets. But even if you believe the president, aren’t you worried that a government that can send troops to a faraway city can send them to a neighborhood near you?

This column was first published in The Orange County Register.

Steven Greenhut is Western region director for the R Street Institute and a member of the Southern California News Group editorial board. Write to him at sgreenhut@rstreet.org.