When men take it in their heads to-day, to hang gamblers, or burn murderers, they should recollect, that, in the confusion usually attending such transactions, they will be as likely to hang or burn some one who is neither a gambler nor a murderer as one who is; and that, acting upon the example they set, the mob of to-morrow, may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mistake. And not only so; the innocent, those who have ever set their faces against violations of law in every shape, alike with the guilty, fall victims to the ravages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defense of the persons and property of individuals, are trodden down, and disregarded.
Abraham Lincoln, address to the Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois (January 27, 1838).
1 reply on “Abraham Lincoln”
…. When men, willy-nilly, hang gamblers and burn murderers, they should recollect that in the confusion attendant upon such lynchings, there may well be some hung who were neither gamblers nor murderers. And should further ponder whether other men, in the future, might form tomorrow’s mob. That will as-likely hang or burn some of today’s lynch mob ….
Thus may we pray and trust that as the Roberts “court” willy-nilly hangs and burns America’s Founding Law and other institutions, makes the amoral, moral — and mandates the celebration of mental illness, sexual derangement and delusion — so will the mob soon come for it.
And in so doing deliver, in abundance, to The Tree Of Liberty, its natural manure: The blood of patriots.
And of tyrants!
Brian Richard Allen