Defeating mobocratic spirit
January 1838 was 23 years from the First Battle of Bull Run, where Americans would first oppose each other in civil war. Yet the scourge of slavery was already ripping at the nation’s seams.
In 1836, a white mob stormed a St. Louis jail, seized a free Black American named Francis McIntosh, chained him to a locust tree, and burned him alive. Similarly, in late 1837, a mob of pro-slavery thugs murdered abolitionist writer Elijah Lovejoy for resolutely decrying slavery despite having his printing presses thrown into the Mississippi River three times.
In both tragedies, not a single person was convicted.
On Jan. 27, 1838, a 28-year-old Illinois state representative named Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech to the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Ill., titled “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.”
Still more than two decades ahead of our Civil War, Lincoln observed:
“There is, even now, something of ill-omen amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country, the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions in lieu of the sober judgment of courts, and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.”
Young Lincoln warned that these mobs were not only treacherous because of the radicals that led them, but also posed a threat to the very soul of the nation and all her citizens:
“Good men who love tranquility, who desire to abide by the laws, and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country … become tired of, and disgusted with, a government that offers them no protection and are not much averse to a change in which they imagine they have nothing to lose.
“Thus, then, by the operation of this mobocratic spirit, the strongest bulwark of any government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed.”
His solution was forceful and clear: “Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others … .
“And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.”
Lincoln was not persuaded by “bad laws:”
“[B]ad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible; still, while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed … . There is no grievance that is a fit object of redress by mob law.”
Our nation is once again seeing its extremities drift towards a mobocratic spirit. For these factions, the only trait of allegiance is outrage.
This summer, savage and senseless violence ravaged cities from Portland to Kenosha. Police officers were shot in the line of duty. Innocent business owners lost their life’s work overnight. Ordinary Americans lost control of their very communities as their leaders abdicated the most fundamental responsibility of government.
Recently an equally reprehensible mob stormed the very heart of our republic. They assaulted the police officers they claim to revere and desecrated the constitutional foundations of our nation.
Over the past year, there have been countless calls for law and order. This is inherently reactionary and far from enough. As young Lincoln warned, these mobs threaten the soul of America, and every one of us must choose. Now is the time for every Arkansan and all Americans to decide for themselves their “political religion.”
Will it be lawlessness? Will our passions and the perceived merits of our respective causes eclipse our love for liberty and the lessons of our past? Will ordinary law-abiding Americans that “love tranquility” ignore the scars and lessons of a civil war? Will we persist in passivity toward these modern mobs—silently allowing them to fester, metastasize, and ultimately divide us?
Or will we heed the words of young Lincoln that so many rejected? Will we profess a creed of equality purchased by revolution and bitterly forged by civil war? Will we choose a political religion that affirms the law as the sole mechanism that secures liberty?
As Lincoln warned and our history bears out, the perpetuation of our freedoms hinge on our decision.