It was March 1965, on the eve of the momentous civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. Tensions between protesters and law enforcement officers had been rising across the South. The president was at odds over voting rights with a governor he considered to be a recalcitrant political adversary.
So President Lyndon B. Johnson did something presidents rarely do: He invoked his legal authority to activate and deploy the Alabama National Guard without the cooperation of Gov. George Wallace, one of the nation’s most prominent segregationists, to protect demonstrators against violence.
Before Saturday, that was the last time a president used his limited executive authority to bypass a state governor and dispatch that state’s National Guard himself to deal with civil unrest. In nearly all cases when the National Guard is activated, it happens at the request of the state governor, who commands the troops, and presidents do not interfere.
On Sunday morning, though, hundreds of California National Guard troops arrived in Los Angeles, and hundreds more were on the way, at President Trump’s direction.
He said their mission was to help defuse clashes between federal immigration agents and demonstrators in and around Los Angeles. In some cases, demonstrators who oppose Mr. Trump’s mass deportation campaign have surrounded agents, pelted them with objects and tried to block them from moving down streets.
A White House spokeswoman, Karoline Leavitt, said officials in California had “completely abdicated their responsibility to protect their citizens.” Gov. Gavin Newsom of California called the president’s move an unnecessary provocation.
“Presidents rarely federalize a state or territory’s guard without the consent of the governor,” the Council on Foreign Relations noted in an online fact sheet summarizing the history of the National Guard.
As an example, President George W. Bush decided against taking control of the National Guard in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina in 2006, after the state’s Democratic governor, Kathleen Blanco, objected.
Often, a governor works with the president when a situation arises that local authorities are not equipped to handle on their own. This was the case in 1992 during another tense situation in Los Angeles: the riots that followed the acquittal of police officers who had beaten Rodney King, a Black man.
President Johnson explained his decision in 1965 to call out the Guard as a way to ensure the rights of American citizens “to walk peaceably and safely without injury or loss of life from Selma to Montgomery, Ala.”
He acted because Governor Wallace — who did not want to take action that could be seen as defending the marchers or their cause for civil rights — refused to issue orders to the National Guard himself.
Jeremy W. Peters is a Times reporter who covers debates over free expression and how they impact higher education and other vital American institutions.
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