Dan McLaughlin, author of the forthcoming Born in Wire and Steam, tells how Californians learned the hard way that vigilante justice and the demands of the mob are no substitute for police and courts of law.

The temporary collapse of authority in many American cities, and the proposals of “defund the police” advocates to make that collapse permanent, has illustrated a timeless truth: When government authority dissolves, people will form their own armed enforcers of order. You will not get a peace-and-love utopia: You will instead get vigilante justice, posses, and lynchings. It will not be pretty; in Kenosha, Wis., it has already led to one well-publicized shooting. More force still will be needed to retake control. Come back with me to San Francisco in the 1850s to see how Americans learned this lesson once before.

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