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Do you know what the Insurrection Act is and does? Originally enacted in 1792, the law grants the president the authority to deploy the U.S. military domestically and use it against Americans under certain conditions. Sections 252 and 253 allow the president to deploy troops without a request from the affected state, even against the state’s wishes. Section 252 permits deployment in order to “enforce the laws” of the United States or to “suppress rebellion” whenever “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” make it “impracticable” to enforce federal law in that state by the “ordinary course of judicial proceedings.” Section 253 has two parts. The first allows the president to use the military in a state to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” that “so hinders the execution of the laws” that any portion of the state’s inhabitants are deprived of a constitutional right and state authorities are unable or unwilling to protect that right. The second part of Section 253 permits the president to deploy troops to suppress “any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” in a state that “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.” Nothing in the text of the Insurrection Act defines “insurrection,” “rebellion,” “domestic violence,” or any of the other key terms used in setting forth the prerequisites for deployment. Absent statutory guidance, the Supreme Court decided early on that this question is for the president alone to decide.