Deputy Marshals arrest protesters at the Pentagon in October 1967.  During the Vietnam War, the Marshals helped protect government buildings from anti-war demonstrators

This was particularly important in the 19th century when lack of communications made the national government distant and seemingly foreign, but everyone knew or had heard of the Marshal because he had been active in community affairs and politics for years.

For most of their history, U.S. Marshals enjoyed a surprising degree of independence in performing their duties. Quite simply, no headquarters or central administration existed to supervise the work of the Marshals until the late 1950s. Even then, the Executive Office for U.S. Marshals had no real power over the districts until it was transformed into the U.S. Marshals Service in 1969 and given control of the district budgets and the hiring of Deputies. Prior to that, each Marshal was practically autonomous, receiving only general guidance from the executive branch of the government.

As a result. the Marshals; working with the federal judges and U.S. Attorneys in their districts, enjoyed a wide latitude in determining how they would enforce the law. For most of them, the solution was to go as easily as possible. Few of them wanted to give offense to their friends and neighbors, particularly since they knew all to well that the job of Marshal was temporary. Unless they were prepared to leave their homes after their commissions expired, the Marshals struggled to balance the enforcement of Federal laws against the feelings of the local populace.