During President Trump’s second term, scholars, politicians, journalists, and Americans alike have begun to question whether the United States is in a constitutional crisis. Many scholars have argued that the United States Congress and the Federal Judiciary have delegated their power to the Executive Branch, which is led by the President.
Others have pointed out the Trump Administration’s defiance of a Supreme Court ruling on April 10, 2025, ordering the Trump Administration to facilitate the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who lived in Maryland at the time of his deportation. Abrego Garcia has since returned; however, his case is still being litigated.
On September 16, 2025, Dr. J L Tomlin, Assistant Professor of History, gave a lecture about the history of constitutional crises in the United States.
Tomlin’s lecture sought to define constitutional crises and analyze historical data to answer the question, “Are we in a constitutional crisis?”
Tomlin defined a constitutional crisis as a failure of a governing code to perform its central functions, the perceived failure of a governing code, or the risk of a failure.
Tomlin spoke with News Editor Liam Savage about the history of constitutional crises in the United States and their modern risks.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
LS: Could you name a point in American history when we experienced the most serious constitutional crisis?
T: Most historians would agree that the most serious constitutional crisis we faced was the secession crisis of 1860 to 1861, because the outcome was a horrible, ruinous civil war over that constitutional issue of whether or not a state was allowed to secede from the Union, and of course, on the issue of slavery, which was the motivating factor behind secession.
LS: If we were in a constitutional crisis, what could the average American do about it?
T: The best thing Americans can do is educate themselves on what the Constitution does and does not allow. After that, participation in the political process, voting, and removing people who violate the Constitution is the best defense of it. If the Constitution itself is part of the problem, then we can change it to meet the needs of the moment. The Constitution itself provides that remedy through the amendment process.
LS: In recent weeks, President Trump has deployed National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon, Chicago, Illinois, and other democratic run cities in the United States. It has been reported that the President is considering invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. Could you speak about the history of invoking the Insurrection Act, and is there historical precedent of the President deploying the military in major U.S cities?
T: What is unprecedented is how blatantly loose the Trump Administration’s reading of the situation is. Other presidents have used military forces to restore order in cities and to end strikes in wartime. Presidents have used the Insurrection Act as well. What is unprecedented is the blatant use of force to go after areas perceived to be politically oppositional to a president. That has never been done. It’s even for the reasoning the President himself has given, blatantly unconstitutional, a gross misuse of power, a gross abuse of emergency powers, an abrogation of congressional authority, not to mention state authority and sovereignty.
LS: If the President does deploy the United States military against its own people, what does that mean for the Constitut
ion if other channels of power are not used to stop it?
T: It would be a pretty obvious constitutional crisis because the Constitution explicitly does not allow this. Congress is controlled by Mr. Trump’s party, and it has shown very little appetite to oppose him openly. The Supreme Court is six to three conservative majority, many of whom have also shown sympathy to Mr. Trump’s positions. I can’t imagine the Supreme Court can obviously, honestly look at those behaviors and find them constitutional. It’s far more likely that they refuse to get involved in it, which would be a tacit acceptance of it.
The closest parallel would be Lincoln’s use of military force to put down the rebellion in the South in 1861 to [1865], but that’s with congressional approval, and it is found largely constitutional by the Supreme Court, which was hostile to Mr. Lincoln, at least in his first term. That’s the closest parallel I can find. But that was preceding an actual civil conflict, kind of an ominous parallel to point out; otherwise, there is no precedent, and we’ll have to find out what new chapter of history gets written by it.
