Beyond their brutality, the young lawyer feared these mobs for the lawlessness they embodied -- and the idle familiarity with which his fellow Americans seemed to accept these incidents.
. . . "This too, was well familiar to Lincoln, who knew the mob will go further and spread deeper, warning, “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 no restraint, but dread of punishment, they thus become, absolutely unrestrained.”
“ 'On the other hand,” he predicted, “good men, 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; seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect that forebodes a change for the better; 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.”
"Combined, he warned, these seemingly opposing feelings come to one terrible conclusion: “the strongest bulwark of any Government, and particularly of those constituted like ours, may effectually be broken down and destroyed — I mean the attachment of the People.”
"To ensure that the fading “scenes of the revolution are [not] now or ever will be entirely forgotten,” Lincoln prescribed “in history, we hope, they will be read of, and recounted, so long as the Bible shall be read.' ” . . .More...
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