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posse comitAtus Act, June 18, 1878 U.S. Statutes at Large 20:145, 152. Now amended to include the united States Air Force and currently found in the united States Code Annotated at 18 u.S.C.A.§1385, this statute forms the basis of the tradition of prohibiting the use of the military forces within the united States in essentially police activities. This tradition can be traced back to the english experience and, in recent times, using the military within the boundaries of the country has become an issue once again since the 2001 terrorist attacks. At the time of its enactment, the purpose of Section 15 was to prevent the federal marshals from calling on the military to help the marshals enforce Reconstruction statutes and requirements within southern states. Because the Posse Comitatus Act was a rider attached to the 1878 Army Appropriations Act, parts of this statute have been reproduced here to provide a sense of the entire act. like any appropriations act, the statute specified the pay of the military grade of enlisted personnel, the costs of telegrams, quartermaster rules, and appropriations for the purchase of horses, quarters, uniforms, military hospitals, and cemeteries, to mention just a few of the details . Another rider, Section 14, deals with a joint committee to investigate reassigning the Indian Bureau, and Section 15 is the Posse Comitatus Act. Chap. 263.—An act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the following sums be, and the same are hereby, appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated , for the support of the Army, for the year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, as follows: Documentary History of the American Civil War era 294 For expenses of the commanding general’s office, two thousand five hundred dollars. For expenses of recruiting and transportation of recruits, seventy-five thousand dollars. And no money appropriated by this act shall be paid for recruiting the Army beyond the number of twenty-five thousand enlisted men, including Indian scouts and hospital-stewards. Nothing, however, in this act shall be construed to prevent enlistments for the Signal Service, which shall hereafter be maintained as now organized and as provided by law, with a force of enlisted men not exceeding four hundred and fifty, after present terms of enlistment have expired. For contingent expenses of the Adjutant-General’s Department at the headquarters of military divisions and departments, three thousand dollars. For expenses of the Signal Service of the Army, purchase, equipment, and repair of electric field-telegraphs and signal-equipments, ten thousand five hundred dollars. . . . Sec. 14. That three Senators to be appointed by the President of the Senate, and five Representatives, to be appointed by the Speaker of the House, are hereby constituted a joint committee who shall take into consideration the expediency of transferring the Indian Bureau to the War Department. Said committee shall be authorized to send for persons and papers, to employ a clerk and stenographer and to sit during the recess of Congress. It shall be the duty of said committee to make final report to Congress on or before the first day of January eighteen hundred and seventy-nine. And the sum of five thousand dollars, or so much thereof as may be necessary is hereby appropriated out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated, to de fray the expenses of said committee, to be expended under the direction of the chairman thereof. Sec. 15. From and after the passage of this act 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 an act of Congress; and no money appropriated by this act shall be used to pay any of the expenses incurred in the employment of any troops in violation of this section and any person willfully violating the provisions of this section shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and on conviction thereof shall be punished by fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars or imprisonment not exceeding two years or by both...

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