This calendar month marks the 327th anniversary of the Salem witch trials, when 19 convicted "witches" were hanged in a wave of violent persecution in Massachusetts.

Witch trials may seem like horrific events from a backwards past, but today, in many developing countries, witchcraft accusations remain mutual, while modern democracies struggle to residual the rule of police in the face up of what seem like existential threats.

Everyone is susceptible to hysteria when fear runs rampant, and fear comes in many forms, from witchcraft to terrorism to immigration.

Massachusetts, subsequently all, was non the only place where women, men and children were killed equally witches in the 16th and 17th centuries. Between 1450 and 1750, approximately 100,000 Europeans were put on trial for witchcraft and between 30,000 and 40,000 were executed.

The perceived threat was a projection of the fears of a club in flux: Growing economies had strained traditional social ties while the Reformation undermined established organized religion. This is the reason most of the defendant were from marginalized groups such equally women—particularly widows.

Almost trials occurred in places with weak authoritative chapters to impose rules and weak fiscal chapters to tax. Rugged border regions such every bit Aquitaine in France were particularly difficult to govern, as were far-flung colonies such every bit Salem. In our book, Persecution and Toleration: The Long Route to Religious Liberty, Marking Koyama and I evidence that a fortunate issue of consistent governance across populations is more tolerance toward marginalized groups.

Invariably, witch trials today are conducted where the state is weak. In the Democratic republic of the congo, thousands of children take been expelled from their homes every bit witches. In India, witch murders are nigh common in the poor, rural states of Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha.

Witch trials and their ilk, however, have never been express to poor and developing countries. The alleged danger posed to the social fabric past marginalized groups such every bit Jews often became an excuse for extra-legal persecution in early-modern Europe.

In Salem, the witch trials were supposed to be legal proceedings, not mobs. A confidence required evidence that a defendant engaged in evil magic (maleficia) and devil worship (diabolism). Such prove, even for 17th-century prosecutors, was difficult to find. This did not stop magistrates hell-aptitude on rooting out witches.

As the jurist and demonologist Jean Bodin wrote, "Proof of such evil is so obscure and difficult that non one of a one thousand thousand witches would exist defendant and punished if regular legal procedure were followed."

Tens of thousands of individuals were tortured, and the almost common question asked by judges was "Who are the other witches?" An accusation against a unmarried person could easily turn into a witch hunt persecuting hundreds—in the process validating public belief in the supernatural threat.

Today, the excuses to weaken legal standards tend to revolve effectually terrorism and immigration

A prominent example is what happened in the aftermath of the September eleven attacks. The Patriot Act explicitly weakened the rules of evidence required to pursue alleged terrorists, equally well as the rules against torture. Ordinary Americans found themselves nether surveillance even though the mass collection of phone records did non directly forbid whatsoever terrorist attacks, according to the regime's ain 2022 report. To our shame, underground prisons and torture blackened America'southward reputation for justice and liberty.

More recently, children every bit young equally 4 years one-time have been forced to defend themselves in displacement hearings without even the benefit of counsel. Is a displacement hearing for a child so dissimilar from a witch trial?

Migrant child deportation
Central American immigrant families depart U.S. Clearing and Customs Enforcement custody, pending future immigration court hearings on June 11, 2018, in McAllen, Texas. John Moore/Getty

In club to make it easier to identify and expel immigrants, the Trump assistants is advocating the repeal of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees citizenship to anyone born on U.S. soil. Regardless of ane's views on how many immigrants should come to the The states, this is a move to apply a different, weaker standard of law to a meaning portion of the population.

Of course, present-mean solar day terrorism and clearing are real policy issues, not fantasy. However, the cost of the response depends on the perceived size of the threat.

Merely as demonologists' arguments to relax standards of evidence to catch potential witches weakened the rule of constabulary and resulted in the persecution of innocents, then practice arguments to ignore or adjust the police to catch potential terrorists or immigrants.

The difficult question for citizens today is whether we are getting this balance correct. We are unlikely to render to burning people at the stake, but neither America nor the world has reached the point where nosotros tin afford to forget the lessons of the witch trials.

Noel Johnson is an acquaintance professor of economics at George Mason University and a enquiry fellow with the Mercatus Center. He is co-writer with Mark Koyama of the new volume Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom (Cambridge University Printing).

The views expressed in this commodity are the writer's own.