Note 404 — ARTICLE II (continued 3)

Op. Atty. Gen. 466 (1854). By the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 (20 Stat. 152) it was provided that "* * * it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force may be expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress * * *" The effect of this prohibition, however, was largely nullified by a ruling of the Attorney General "that by Revised Statutes §§ 5298 and 5300, the military forces, under the direction of the President, could be used to assist a marshal. 16 Op. Atty. Gen. 162." Bennett Milton Rich, The Presidents and Civil Disorder (The Brookings Institution, 1941), 196 fn. 21.