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...sober judgement. This disposition is awfully fearful in any community; and that it now exists in ours, though grating to our feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth and an insult to our intelligence to deny.

It would be tedious as well as useless to recount the horrors of all of the (incidents). But you...ask, "What has this to do with the perpetuation of our political institutions?" I answer, It has much to do with it. Its direct consequences are, comparatively speaking, but a small evil, and much of its danger consists in the proneness of our minds to regard its direct (consequences) as its only consequences.

By such examples, by instances of the perpetrators...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. While, on the other hand, good men, men who love tranquillity, who desire to abide by the laws and enjoy their benefits, who would gladly spill their blood in the defense of their country, seeing (crime perpetuated), 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.

At such a time men of sufficient talent and ambition will not be wanting to seize the opportunity, strike the blow, and overturn that fair fabric which for the last (two centuries) has been the fondest hope of the lovers of freedom throughout the world.

Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well-wisher to his posterity swear by the blood of the Revolution...never to tolerate the violation (of the laws of the nation). Let every man remember that to violate the law (and the constitution) is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the charter of his own and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws be breathed by every American mother to the lisping babe that prattles on her lap; let it be taught in schools, in seminaries and colleges; let it be written in primers, spelling books, and in almanacs; let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls and enforced in courts of justice.

While ever a state of feeling such as this shall universally or even very generally prevail throughout the nation, vain will be every effort and fruitless every attempt to subvert our national freedom.

This is an excerpt from an Address before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois on 27 January 1837 on the subject of mob rule. It was edited and abridged by W. J. Rayment for the Conservative Monitor May 2001.