History Can Teach Us So Much!

In today's excerpt  - twenty-eight year old Abraham Lincoln's speech to the Young
Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois.  Titled "The Perpetuation of our Political
Institutions," Lincoln's 1838 comments addressed the rampant lynchings that followed
the Emancipation Act of 1833, and his belief that America's greatest dangers came
not from abroad but from within:
"We find ourselves in the peaceful possession of the fairest portion of the earth,
as regards extent of territory, fertility of soil, and salubrity of climate.  ...
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger?  By what means shall we fortify
against it?  Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean,
and crush us at a blow? Never!  All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined,
with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with
a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or
make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?  I answer, if it ever
reach us, it must spring up amongst us.  It cannot come from abroad.  If destruction
be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher.  ...
"I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, 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
minister of justice.  ...  Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form the everyday
news of the times.  ...
"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 someone, 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 violation
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. 
But all this even, is not the full extent of the evil.  By such examples, by instances
of the perpetrators of such acts going unpunished, the lawless in spirit, are encouraged
to become lawless in practice; and having been used to restraint, but dread of punishment,
they thus become, absolute unrestrained.  ...  Thus, then, by the operation of this
mobocratic spirit, which all must admit is now abroad in the land, the strongest
bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may
effectually be broken down and destroyed ... [and] this Government cannot last.
 ...
"The question recurs, 'how shall we fortify against it?' The answer is simple. 
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.  As the
patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so
to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every man remember that to violate
the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of
his own, and his children's liberty.  ... In short, let it become the political
religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the
brave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice
unceasingly upon its altars.
"The scenes of the revolution are not now or ever will be entirely forgotten; but
that like everything else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow
more and more dim by the lapse of time. ... They were the pillars of the temple
of liberty; and now, that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless
we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid
quarry of sober reason.  Passion has helped us; but can do so no more.  It will
in future be our enemy.  Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason must furnish
all the materials for our future support and defense.  Let those materials be molded
into general intelligence, sound morality and, in particular, a reverence for the
constitution and laws. ...
"Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and
as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, 'the gates of hell shall
not prevail against it.' "
Author: Abraham Lincoln
Title: "The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions"
Date: January 1838
Tags: Speeches, Presidents, Lynching
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