US Presidency
1877

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation Whereas it is provided in the Constitution of the United States that the United States shall protect every State in this Union, on application of the legislature, or of the executive ( when the legislature can not be convened ), against domestic violence; and Whereas the governor of the State of West Virginia has represented that domestic violence exists in said State at Martinsburg, and at various other points along the line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in said State, which the authorities of said State are unable to suppress; and Whereas the laws of the United States require that in all cases of insurrection in any State or of obstruction to the laws thereof, whenever it may be necessary, in the judgment of the President, he shall forthwith, by proclamation, command such insurgents to disperse and retire peaceably to their respective abodes within a limited time: Now, therefore, I, Rutherford B.