[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 114 (Monday, June 22, 2020)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3116-S3117]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]



                                Protests

  Mr. COTTON. Mr. President, ``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. This disposition is awfully fearful in 
any community; and that it exists now in ours, though grating to our 
feelings to admit, it would be a violation of truth and an insult to 
our intelligence to deny. Accounts of outrages committed by mobs form 
the everyday news of the times.''
  Now, those are not my words. Those are the words of a young Abraham 
Lincoln. Sadly, they ring with truth today.
  In recent weeks, violent mobs have roamed our streets, defacing and 
tearing down statues and monuments--in most cases, with neither 
resistance from the police nor legal consequences.
  On Friday, a mob tore down another statue just a few blocks from 
here. The police stood idly by and watched as rioters toppled it and 
set it on fire. One can only assume they were ordered not to intervene 
by Washington's leftwing mayor.
  Here is the thing: Steps were already underway to move that statue 
lawfully. Washington's delegates in Congress had legislation to that 
effect. But mobs don't care to negotiate--only to destroy.
  The delegate said: I have no doubt I could have gotten that bill 
through, but the people got here before due process.
  It is hard to imagine a more chilling summation of mob rule. As 
Lincoln knew, the mob threatens not just old statues but the lives and 
livelihoods of us all. Indeed, the mob threatens civilization itself in 
many ways.
  Most simply, Lincoln knew that mobs inevitably make mistakes and 
commit injustices. Some may celebrate the destruction of disfavored 
statues and monuments, but what of the vandals in Boston who defaced a 
monument to the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment, the first 
African-American regiment to fight for the Union, whose bravery and 
skill was immortalized in the movie ``Glory''?
  What of the outlaws of Philadelphia, who defaced a statue of Matthias 
Baldwin, a devout, passionate abolitionist?
  Mobs don't discriminate between legitimate and illegitimate targets 
of their destruction. That is because they are mobs.
  Lincoln also warned that the ``lawless in spirit'' will become 
``lawless in practice'' because of mob violence seeing no consequences 
for crimes.
  A mob doesn't stop at statues. Rioters have already torched police 
precincts and low-income housing in Minneapolis. Churches and 
synagogues have been vandalized. Next, perhaps the mob will target the 
homes of police officers, and soon enough the mob may come for you and 
your home and your family.
  As the mob expands its power, Lincoln cautioned that good citizens, 
``seeing their property destroyed; their families insulted, and their 
lives endangered; their persons injured; and seeing nothing in prospect 
that forebodes a change for the better; become tired of, and disgusted 
with, a Government that offers them no protection.''
  Mob rule can only serve to demoralize our people and shake their 
faith in our government and our way of life. As the mob rises, 
civilization recedes.
  Finally, Lincoln observed that ``by the operation of this mobocractic 
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.''
  The final victim of mob rule is the very spirit of civic-minded 
patriotism that's necessary to preserve our Republic.
  For all these reasons, Lincoln said: ``There is no grievance that is 
a fit object of redress by mob law.'' We cannot tolerate mob rule, and 
we cannot allow it to go unpunished.
  While local authorities would usually take the lead in prosecuting 
these criminals, unfortunately, many of them seem unwilling to stand up 
to the mob and uphold the rule of law. Therefore, I call upon the 
Department of Justice to bring charges against these mob vigilantes, 
prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law. The Anti-Riot Act 
and the Veterans' Memorial Preservation and Recognition Act can provide 
legal grounds in some cases; still other Federal statutes may govern in 
other cases; but there must be consequences for mob violence because if 
you give the mob an inch, it will take a mile.
  Witness the events of just this past weekend, where mobs tore down 
statues of George Washington and Ulysses S. Grant. When you tear down 
statues of Washington and Grant, it is not about the Civil War; it is 
because you hate America. Indeed, these rioters hate America.
  In Portland, where they tore down the statue of Washington, they also 
spray-painted on him the date ``1619,'' a reference to the New York 
Times's revisionist, anti-American history project. Perhaps we should 
call them the ``1619 riots.'' After all, the architect of that 
execrable project said: ``It would be an honor.''
  This hatred for America was nowhere on greater display than in San 
Francisco, where the mob tore down the statue of Grant. That would be 
U.S. Grant, commander of the Union Army, whose very initials embody his 
tenacious, unrelenting approach to war: unconditional surrender.
  That would also be President Grant, the political heir of Abraham 
Lincoln, a statesman who smashed the first Ku Klux Klan, signed the 
first major civil rights legislation, and presided over passage of the 
15th Amendment.
  In one famous instance, President Grant sent in the troops to 
disperse a White mob in New Orleans that was terrorizing the city's 
Black and Republican residents and had to depose the State's lawful 
Governor.
  Grant had zero tolerance for mob rule. He said: ``[N]either Ku Klux 
Klans, White Leagues, nor any other association using arms and violence 
to execute their unlawful purposes can be permitted in that way to 
govern any part of this country.''
  This was a man whom the great Frederick Douglass eulogized as ``too 
broad for prejudice, too humane to despise the humblest, too great to 
be small at any point.'' Yet the mobs still came for Grant.
  Some people have been asking: Where is the line? I say: This is the 
line--the line between mob rule and the rule of law.

[[Page S3117]]

  Since I began by quoting Lincoln, let me conclude by borrowing from 
Grant, who wrote during the Battle of Spotsylvania: ``I propose to 
fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.''
  I will fight it out on this line if it takes a lot longer than that.
  I yield the floor.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. WICKER. Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Ms. Ernst). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.