“COMBINATIONS TOO POWERFUL TO BE SUPPRESSED BY THE ORDINARY COURSE OF JUDICIAL PROCEEDINGS…”

December 14, 2020

By the President of the United States

A Proclamation.

Whereas the laws of the United States have been for some time past, and now are opposed, and the execution thereof obstructed, in the States of Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada, by combinations too powerful to be suppressed by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, or by the powers vested in the Marshals by law,

Now therefore, I, Donald Trump, President of the United States, in virtue of the power in me vested by the Constitution, and the laws, have thought fit to invoke and call forth, and hereby do invoke the Insurrection Act and call forth the militia of the several States of the Union, to the aggregate number of seven-hundred and fifty-thousand, in order to suppress said combinations, and to cause the laws to be duly executed. The details, for this object, will be immediately communicated to the State authorities through the Department of Defense.

I appeal to all loyal citizens to favor, facilitate and aid this effort to maintain the honor, the integrity, and the existence of our National Union, and the perpetuity of popular government; and to redress wrongs already long enough endured.

I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to re-possess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Cities, Towns, the Several States, and the Union; and in every event, the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.

And I hereby command the persons composing the combinations aforesaid to disperse, and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within twenty days from this date.

Deeming that the present condition of public affairs presents an extraordinary occasion, I do hereby, in virtue of the power in me vested by the constitution, ^[4] convene both Houses of Congress. Senators and Representatives are therefore summoned to assemble at their respective chambers, at 12 o’clock, noon, on Wednesday, the twentieth day of January, next, then and there to consider and determine, such measures, as, in their wisdom, the public safety, and interest may seem to demand.

In Witness Whereof I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington this fourteenth day of December in the year of our Lord Two thousand and Twenty, and of the Independence of the United States the Two-hundred and Forty-fourth.

DONALD TRUMP

By the President

MICHAEL POMPEO, Secretary of State.

Adapted from President Lincoln’s Proclamation of April 15, 1861 – might the United States of America see an announcement such as this, issuing from the White House, in the weeks to come?

Blog Editor Patrick Cloutier is the author of Mussolini’s War in Spain 1936-1939. Italian Intervention in the Spanish Civil War.