“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.”

- Abraham Lincoln, The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions

Although mob action may seem expedient, according to President Lincoln, he felt that it ultimately damages the rule of law, and with it the Constitution, and with that democracy itself.