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Personal 16th President of the United States
Tenure Speeches and works   | ||
Abraham Lincoln's Lyceum Address was delivered to the Young Men'sLyceum ofSpringfield, Illinois on January 27, 1838, titled "The Perpetuation of Our Political Institutions".[1][2] In his speech, a 28-year-oldLincoln warned that mobs or people who disrespected U.S. laws and courts could destroy the United States. He went on to say the Constitution and rule of law in the United States should be "thepolitical religion of the nation."[3]
The topic of Lincoln's speech was citizenship in a constitutional republic and threats to U.S. institutions.[1] In the speech, Lincoln discussed in glowing terms the political regime established by theFounding Fathers, but warned of a destructive force from within. He asked his listeners:
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with aBuonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from theOhio, or make a track on theBlue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. 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.
Lincoln indirectly blamed slavery for lawlessness in the United States.[4] In this context he warned that:
whenever the vicious portion of [our] 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 upon it, this Government cannot last. By such things the feelings of the best citizens will become more or less alienated from it; and thus it will be left without friends, or with too few, and those few, too weak to make their friendship effectual.
Lincoln then warned that a tyrant could overtake the U.S. political system from within, if disregard for the rule of law continued unabated.[5] He said:
It is to deny, what the history of the world tells us is true, to suppose that men of ambition and talents will not continue to spring up amongst us. And, when they do, they will as naturally seek the gratification of their ruling passion as others haveso done before them. The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot. Many great and good men sufficiently qualified for any task they should undertake, may ever be found, whose ambition would aspire to nothing beyond a seat inCongress, agubernatorial or apresidential chair;but such belong not to the family of the lion or the tribe of the eagle. What! think you these places would satisfy anAlexander, aCaesar, or aNapoleon? Never! Towering genius disdains a beaten path. It seeks regions hitherto unexplored. It seesno distinction in adding story to story, upon the monuments of fame, erected to the memory of others. Itdenies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. Itscorns to tread in the footsteps ofany predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves or enslaving freemen. Is it unreasonable then to expect, that some man possessed of the loftiest genius, coupled with ambition sufficient to push it to its utmost stretch, will at some time spring up among us? And when such a one does, it will require the people to be united with each other, attached to the government and laws, and generally intelligent, to successfully frustrate his designs. Distinction will be his paramount object; and although he would as willingly, perhaps more so, acquire it by doing good as harm; yet, that opportunity being past, and nothing left to be done in the way of building up, he would set boldly to the task of pulling down.
To prevent this, Lincoln concluded that there was a need to cultivate a "political religion" that emphasizes "reverence for the laws" and puts reliance on "reason—cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason."
During the speech, Lincoln referenced three murders committed by pro-slavery mobs. The first was the lynching of five white gamblers and their alleged black conspirators suspected of fomenting a slave insurrection in Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 4, 1835.
[6]The second was theburning of Francis McIntosh, afreedman who killed aconstable, and was subsequentlylynched by a mob inSt. Louis in 1836.[7] Lincoln also referenced the death ofElijah Parish Lovejoy, anewspaper editor andabolitionist, who was murdered three months earlier by a pro-slavery mob in nearbyAlton, Illinois.[7]
The address was published in theSangamon Journal, helping to establish Lincoln's reputation as anorator. As the Lyceum address was one of Lincoln's earliest published speeches, it has been examined thoroughly by historians.Gore Vidal claimed to have used this speech to fully understand Lincoln's character for hishistorical novelLincoln.[8]
The speech is re-arranged and slightly misquoted at the beginning of the first episode ofKen Burns's 1990 documentary seriesThe Civil War. This arrangement of the quotation is repeated at the beginning of the song "A More Perfect Union" by New Jersey–based bandTitus Andronicus from their second albumThe Monitor.
A large portion of the speech is used in theDisneyland attractionGreat Moments With Mr. Lincoln.
The speech is analyzed in depth by Diana Schaub inHis Greatest Speeches: How Lincoln Moved the Nation, St. Martin's Press, 2021 and in Saladin Ambar'sMurder on the Mississippi: The Shocking Crimes That Shaped Abraham Lincoln, Diversion Books, 2025.
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