insurrection

An insurrection is a violent uprising of citizens intended to overthrow a government. Sedition is language used with the intent to incite an insurrection against a governing authority.

The Insurrection Act gives certain powers that otherwise would not be available to the President in times of an uprising to preserve the peace. Most notable of the powers is the exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, which expressly prohibits the President and all other individuals from “willfully us[ing] any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws [domestically].” The Insurrection Act has been invoked several times throughout American history. Notably, several presidents (e.g., President Dwight D. Eisenhower and President John F. Kennedy) have invoked the power in the post-Brown v. Board of Education landscape to prevent the violence that had resulted from attempts to enforce the ruling and to integrate schools. Additionally, following the civil unrest in California that had resulted from the acquittal of the officers involved in the beating of Rodney King, President H.W. Bush invoked the Insurrection Act to deploy federal troops to disperse crowds and suppress violence.

Section Three of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, also called the Disqualification Clause, prohibits politicians from holding office who had previously held office and subsequently “engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the [U.S.].” The provision was added to the Constitution primarily to prevent individuals involved in the Confederacy from holding office following the Civil War. However, in 1872, Congress passed the Amnesty Act, which removed the prohibition from most former Confederates. In 2024, the Supreme Court further limited the enforcement mechanism of the disqualification clause in Trump v. Anderson, 601 U.S. 100, finding that states cannot enforce Section Three against federal officials.

See also: CRS Report: Legal Authorities for the Use of Military Forces, CRS Report: The Insurrection Bar to Holding Office: Appeals Court Issues Decision on Section 3 of the Fourteenth Amendment, The Insurrection Act, Explained, by the Brennan Center for Justice. 

[Last reviewed in March of 2026 by the Wex Definitions Team] 

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