Times Have Changed But the Mob Remains the Same
TIMES HAVE CHANGED BUT THE MOB REMAINS THE SAME // bizpacreview
In 1838, a twenty eight year old member of the Illinois House of Representatives named Abraham Lincoln observed the frightening and dangerous proliferation of mob justice sweeping across the nation. In Vicksburg a mob had recently taken it upon themselves to hang gamblers. In St. Louis, a murderer named McIntosh, was “seized in the street, dragged to the suburbs of the city, chained to a tree, and actually burned to death.”
In his speech addressed to the Young Men’s Lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, Lincoln condemned the outbreak of mob justice and warned that mobocratic rule would cause our “temple of liberty” to fall. Today Americans would be wise to revisit Lincoln’s passionate appeals to condemn the mob in his time, lest we wish to witness the crumbling of our nation in our time.
183 years later a new proliferation of mob justice is sweeping across America. Cancel culture has merely replaced the noose and arguably our mob today is more frightening than the mob of yesterday. Had the mob not murdered gamblers and murderers like McIntosh in Lincoln’s time, they would have died by the sentence of the law a short time later. But our new mob metaphorically hangs and burns not those who havecommitted crimes in the eyes of the law, but those who have committed no crimes at all.