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More Than You Ever Wanted to Know
About Posse Comitatus
E. P. Visco
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The execution of warrants for the return of escaped slaves was resisted in Pennsylvania. A posse was summoned to aid the commissioners but the posse refused to act. A federal judge asked President Millard Fillmore if he (the judge) could call for US troops as might be available. The president held two cabinet meetings to discuss the problem; there was unanimous agreement among the cabinet members that it should be done (that is, military force should be called out to help civil officers execute the Fugitive Slave Law). There was, however, disagreement on how the military should be called out. The president thought he had authority to call on troops without issuing a cease and desist order (as called for in the 1807 act). Some cabinet members disagreed; some felt that marshals might themselves call on members of Army as citizens to form part of posse comitatus. The cabinet decided on a mixture: give authority to US marshals and deputies to call for troops when a district judge or justice of Supreme Court ”should certify that in his opinion it was necessary” (Coakley, p. 128)
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