Governors also have powers-explicitly stated in many state constitutions-to impose martial law. The US Constitution does not include direct references to martial law, but the Supreme Court has interpreted a clause ( Article I, Section 8, Clause 15, to be exact) on calling forth the militia as allowing Congress and the president to impose martial law.

The power to declare martial law varies by country. The term martial law was first recorded in the 1500s, though the imposition of it-or fear thereof-has influenced ancient and modern history alike. The primary meaning of martial law is вЂњthe law temporarily imposed upon an area by state or national military forces when civil authority has broken down or during wartime military operations.вЂќ In other words, ordinary, civil law and authority is suspended in an area, and the military takes control. Martial is the adjective used in the expressions martial law and martial arts, two phrases where many of us most often encounter the word martial. First recorded in English around 1325вЂ“75, martial ultimately comes from Mars, the Roman god of war. Martial is an adjective that variously means вЂњwarlike,вЂќ вЂњassociated with war or the military,вЂќ or вЂњcharacteristic of a warrior.вЂќ Sometimes, martial can be used with figurative force, as in His parents took a very martial attitude towards discipline. LetвЂ™s marshal, shall we say, the facts, and bring some order to the differences among martial and marshal and marshall. And adding to the understandable confusion of these words is marshall, with two Ls. ItвЂ™s not enough that martial and marshal are pronounced the same, is it? No, the English language has to further complicate things, because while these homophones, martial and marshal, have different meanings, they both involve some overlapping concepts of law and war.

Martial law meaning