The Rule of Law – Lincoln at Lyceum

The Rule of Law posits that the Law, not an individual, is the supreme authority in a land. Deriving in the West from the Bible and from Hammurabi’s Code, the Rule of Law is one of the major reasons for the success of Western Civilization. Why are we throwing it away?

By Mark D. Harris

“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 ministers of justice.”

Lincoln spoke those words in 1837, only 24 years before civil war tore America apart. The future Great Emancipator spoke of mob justice, racially motivated violence, and attacks on American political institutions. Now in 2018, we read of racially motivated shootings at a Pittsburgh synagogue and a Kentucky store, and mail bombs sent to politicians. If 1837 seems similar to 2018, it is…and Americans should do all they can to stop it.

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