[Spoken on 9.30.62 in response to the James Meredith situation at the University of Mississippi / 1:24 to 2:20] “Even among law-abiding citizens, few laws are universally loved. But [among a decently behaved Democratic citizenry] they are uniformly respected and not resisted.
“Americans, in short, are free to disagree with the law, but not to disobey it. No man, however prominent or powerful, and no mob, however unruly or boisterous, is entitled to defy a court of law.
“If this country should ever reach the point where any man or group of men, by force or threat of force, could long deny the demands of our court and our Constitution, then no law would stand free from doubt, no judge would be sure of his writ, and no citizen would be safe from his neighbors.”
