In March 1787, Founding Father Benjamin Rush already had his mind on the corrosive effects of “cancel culture.”
“Ignominy is universally acknowledged to be a worse punishment than death,” wrote Rush in “An Enquiry Into the Effects of Public Punishments Upon Criminals, and Upon Society.”
“It would seem strange, that ignominy should ever have been adopted, as a milder punishment than death, did we not know, that the human mind seldom arrives at truth upon any subject, till it has first reached the extremity of error,” he wrote.
