Why cant the best funded army in the world enter a city with a few hundred hoodlums?
Because our constitution forbids it.......
Three years later, in Ex Parte Milligan, the Court found unconstitutional Lincoln's order authorizing trial by a military tribunal of Lambdin P. Milligan, an Indiana lawyer accused of stirring up support for the Confederacy. The Court ruled that civilians must be tried in civilian courts, even during time of war, so long at least as the civilian courts are open and operating. The Court also found the President lacked authority to declare martial law in Indiana.
"In the United States, there is little precedent for martial law. Several times in the course of our history, martial law of varying degrees has been declared. The most obvious and often-cited example was when President Lincoln declared martial law during the Civil War. This instance provides us with most of the rules for martial law that we would use today, should the need arise.
ex parte Milligan
On September 15, 1863, Lincoln imposed Congressionally-authorized martial law. The authorizing act allowed the President to suspend habeas corpus throughout the entire United States. Lincoln imposed the suspension on "prisoners of war, spies, or aiders and abettors of the enemy," as well as on other classes of people, such as draft dodgers. The President's proclamation was challenged in ex parte Milligan (71 US 2 [1866]). The Supreme Court ruled that Lincoln's imposition of martial law (by way of suspension of habeas corpus) was unconstitutional."
in 1946 (the year may be important!), found unconstitutional President Roosevelt's declaration of martial law in the Hawaii Territory following the attack on Pearl Harbor.)
Did this mean that martial law could never be implemented? No, the Court said. The President can declare martial law when circumstances warrant it: When the civil authority cannot operate, then martial law is not only constitutional, but would be necessary: "If, in foreign invasion or civil war, the courts are actually closed, and it is impossible to administer criminal justice according to law, then, on the theatre of active military operations, where war really prevails, there is a necessity to furnish a substitute for the civil authority, thus overthrown, to preserve the safety of the army and society; and as no power is left but the military, it is allowed to govern by martial rule until the laws can have their free course. As necessity creates the rule, so it limits its duration; for, if this government is continued after the courts are reinstated, it is a gross usurpation of power. Martial rule can never exist where the courts are open, and in the proper and unobstructed exercise of their jurisdiction. It is also confined to the locality of actual war."
so while New Orleans was in shambles as long as the state and local goverment existedin some form, the President should not have brought in the military......to handle a few hoodlums or as you put it......"best funded army in the world enter a city with a few hundred hoodlums?"