The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions
Help students understand why the rule of law is essential in a free society and the role individual citizens play in maintaining a self-governing society and institutions.
“The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions” | Abraham Lincoln’s Young Men’s Lyceum Address
Essential Vocabulary
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bulwark |
defensive wall |
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impunity |
free of consequence |
Building Context
In the 1830s, mob violence was on the rise across the United States. Mobs often took the law into their own hands and dispensed their own brand of justice, rather than letting the law govern society. People joined mobs to lynch Blacks and attack abolitionists for their anti-slavery viewpoints. Sectional tensions over slavery raised passions, and some feared the country was facing a crisis not from an external enemy, but rather from internal turmoil. At the time, lyceums, or organizations dedicated to public debate and education, were a place young men went seeking self-improvement or to gain influence in the public sphere. In 1838, a young man named Abraham Lincoln rose at a lyceum in Springfield, Illinois, and gave an address titled “The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions.” The speech addressed mob violence and outlined the importance of civic virtue, reason, and respect for the law.
Abraham Lincoln
“The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions”
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Notes/Annotations |
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We [the American people] find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us… If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide. |
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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… |
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When men take it in their heads today 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 tomorrow may, and probably will, hang or burn some of them by the very same mistake… |
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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—I mean the attachment of the people. Whenever this effect shall be produced among us; whenever the vicious portion of population shall be permitted to gather in bands of hundreds and thousands, and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity; depend on it, this government cannot last… |
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When I so pressingly urge a strict observance of all the laws, let me not be understood as saying there are no bad laws, nor that grievances may not arise, for the redress of which no legal provisions have been made. I mean to say no such thing. But I do mean to say that, although bad laws, if they exist, should be repealed as soon as possible, still while they continue in force, for the sake of example, they should be religiously observed. |
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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… |
Comprehension and Analysis Questions
- What do you think Lincoln meant when he said, “As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide”? How does this relate to the importance of citizens exercising civic virtue and upholding the rule of law in a self-governing society?
- What does Lincoln state are the dangers of the “mobocratic spirit” that was pervasive in the country at the time?
- What did Lincoln think citizens should do about bad laws? Do you agree with him? Why or why not?
- Why does Lincoln argue that reason is a better tool than passion for individual citizens to use to uphold morality, laws, and the Constitution?
- How can you exercise reason and civic virtue rather than emotions in your daily life in ways that uphold the system of self-government?