The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White Race

It is generally supposed that the custom or practice of lynching in this country had its origin in the method of punishment used by a Virginian farmer named Lynch, who during the Revolutionary War sought in this way to maintain order in his community or section,—hence, Lynch’s Law, and Lynch law, from which comes the word “lynching.”

In the beginning, however, the term seldom, if ever, conveyed the meaning “to put to death”; nor does it appear that Negroes were lynched even so often as whites. The methods of punishment in the majority of cases consisted of riding the victim on a rail, beating or whipping him, and often of giving him a coat of tar and feathers.

Moreover, it does not appear that lynching in any form was very common in the early history of the country. Indeed, in 1839 a writer in the _Southern Literary Messenger_[10:1] began a brief article on the subject with the following:

“Forty years ago the practice of wreaking private vengeance or of inflicting summary or illegal punishment for crime actual or pretended which has been glossed over by the name Lynch law was hardly known except in sparse, frontier settlements beyond the reach of courts and legal proceedings.”

Newspapers, periodicals, and other literature of the time show,—as the years pass,—an interesting change in the meaning of the term Lynch law. As the practice of lynching increased, the methods of the executors of this law became more severe, and it grew more often to mean “a putting to death.” Possibly the change in meaning was partly due to the fact that lynching came to be a favorite means of punishment for abolitionists, their Negro dupes, and for both Negroes and whites who might be found guilty of unusual or shocking crimes.

The change from the mild to the severer meaning of the term was gradual. From 1830 to 1840 it seldom meant “to put to death”; from 1850 to 1860 it very often had that meaning, and by 1870, or 1875,—this became the almost exclusive interpretation of “lynching,” even as at present.

The “New English Dictionary” defines Lynch law as “the practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority; it is now limited to the summary execution of one charged with some flagrant offense.” So this is about the sense (unless otherwise indicated) in which I shall use the expression “Lynch law,” or “lynching,” in these pages.

In seeking a cause for the great increase of lynching, whether in its milder or severer form, from about 1830, I think one need not hesitate to give first place to the Anti-Slavery agitation; and the Southampton Slave Insurrection is also to be considered as contributory.

When, about 1830, the Anti-Slavery agitation began to attract some attention there were a number of anti-slavery societies in the South. These, however, soon broke up as those formed in the North became unreasonable. The net effect of the societies in the North was to produce distrust and even hatred at the South. It could hardly have been otherwise, for the Northern anti-slavery propagandists during the whole period of such agitation seemed to have regard for neither law nor common sense. Nothing better could have been expected from them, however, as, for the most part, the abolitionists were poor, misguided men and women. Instead of adopting persuasive methods and of showing a fair and conciliatory spirit, they were dictatorial, inflammatory and menacing. And by whatever of higher law or Divine inspiration they may have claimed to be actuated, they failed to recognize the fact that they had to deal with human beings and human institutions.

Again, on whatever lofty plane of morality they professed to stand, their propaganda did not comprehend even ordinary honesty. Indeed, it appears as only another illustration,—for history affords so many instances,—of self-elected good men endeavoring to impose their own half-blind perception of the way of the Lord, or their own ideas of what constitutes righteousness on their open-eyed and superior fellow-men, and exerting themselves to the utmost of their ignorance in such efforts,—thus, as is usual in such cases, making hell on earth. Even the Kaiser claims to be the agent of the Lord.

William Lloyd Garrison, the leading exponent of the abolition movement, called the Constitution of the United States “An Agreement with Death and a Covenant with Hell.” In the beginning his most earnest supporters were some pious old women, who doubtless with fair intelligence and good intentions, like many professed good people, let their emotions aided by their imagination get the better of their heads. They seemed to enjoy criticizing the South, with the occasional diversion of holding prayer-meetings for Negroes.

However, it was a long while (even in the North) before the abolition movement gained much headway. Garrison himself was treated with scarcely more consideration in the North than awaited those Apostles of anti-slavery that should go South, having persuaded themselves that they were called to preach the “gospel” of abolition in that benighted section. Indeed, once, in 1835, he hid himself in order to escape from a mob of some thousands of people,—including many of the leading citizens of Boston,—that had collected in front of his office. Some of the crowd found him and soon had a rope around his neck, but he was rescued by the mayor of the city. About two years later, however, a noted abolition editor, Rev. E. P. Lovejoy, was killed by a mob in Illinois.

In 1856 The Liberator made the following remarkable statement in regard to the treatment of abolitionists in the South:

“A record of the cases of Lynch-Law in the Southern States reveals the startling fact that within twenty years over three hundred white persons have been murdered upon the occasion—in most cases unsupported by legal proof—of carrying among the slaveholders arguments addressed to their own intellects and consciences as to the morality and expediency of slavery.”[14:2]

This is evidently a great exaggeration. If it were alleged that over three hundred had been “lynched,” bearing in mind that during those years the word, more often than otherwise, meant giving the victim a coat of tar and feathers, and so on, it would not even then be in accord with what is indicated by better evidence. Books of travel and other literature of the time fail to show that any great number of abolitionists in the South met death by lynching during the period in question.

Indeed, a booklet, “The New Reign of Terror,” published early in 1860,—and in all probability compiled by Garrison himself,—is weighty evidence against the truth of this statement. According to The Liberator, the booklet gave “multiplied newspaper accounts of lynchings, murders, and mob raids of the Black Power of the Slave States within the past year [1859].” Although this was a time of intense excitement throughout the South,—a time when a more bitter feeling was manifested against abolitionists than in any previous period, a careful examination of the “New Reign of Terror” failed to reveal more than one case in which an abolitionist was put to death by lynching.

There is much evidence of a law-abiding spirit in the South (especially in the eastern part) at the beginning of the Anti-Slavery agitation. Indeed, even when lynching was resorted to, it seems to have been done with great reluctance.

Another thing that had some effect on lynching was the Southampton Slave Insurrection, which occurred in 1831. About sixty white men, women, and children were murdered in cold blood by Negroes. However, not more than one of the fifty or more Negroes concerned in it was lynched. Instead, they were given a fair trial, and disposed of according to law. The Insurrection may have caused an increase in the lynching of Negroes by the fact that it begat a kind of fear and distrust of the blacks everywhere, caused them to be more carefully looked after, and more severely dealt with when refractory or guilty of crime.

This was no more than could be expected. In 1835 there were four great fires in the city of Charleston,—all supposed to have been the work of slaves. Moreover, up to 1860 there were rumors of insurrections, and many minor insurrections did take place. The abolitionists, not without reason, were accused of trying to set the slaves against their masters and of fostering outbreaks of the bondmen.

Such things could hardly be considered lightly, for in many places the whites were practically at the mercy of the Negroes. A quotation from Murray,[16:3] an English traveler, may be interesting as it gives an example of the situation in many of the Slave States:

“The farms of the two gentlemen whom I visited occupied the whole of the peninsula formed by the James River; they had each two overseers: thus (their families being young) the effective strength of white men on their estates amounted to six: the Negroes were in number about two hundred and fifty: nor was there a village or place within many miles from which help could be summoned.”

Could one reasonably expect that any man so situated would be inclined to be too ceremonious with any person, black or white, however innocent or saintlike his looks, who might be caught tampering with the Negroes and thereby jeopardize the safety of his family and those of his neighbors as well? When one considers the exasperating circumstances, the wonder is not that there were so many lynchings but rather that there were so few, comparatively.

Some interesting lynchings occurred in 1835. They were widely commented upon at the time. One, the case of a mulatto from Pennsylvania, who was supposed to have some connection with the abolitionists, was burned at St. Louis for killing an officer who was trying to arrest him for some crime he had committed. The judge’s charge to the grand jury in reference to the matter is worth consideration as it indicates the attitude toward lynching shown at the time by those in authority:

“He told the jury that a bad and lamentable deed had been committed in burning a man alive without trial, but that it was quite another question whether they were to take any notice of it. If it should prove to be the act of a few, every one of those few ought undoubtedly to be indicted and punished; but if it should be proved to be the act of the many, incited by that electric and metaphysical influence which occasionally carries on a multitude to do deeds above and beyond the law, it was no affair for the jury to interfere with.”[18:4]

The same year, 1835, two Negroes were burned near Mobile.[18:5] The circumstances were these:

Upon the failure of a certain little girl and her brother to return from school at the proper time a search was made and the body of the girl at last found. It appeared that she had been violated, then murdered, and her body hid in order to conceal the crime. Soon after this, two young ladies of Mobile were seized by two Negroes near the place where the body of the little girl was found. The young ladies escaped. At once suspicion pointed to these Negroes as the murderers of the children. They were arrested, tried by the court, and found guilty. The gentlemen of Mobile, it is said, then seized the Negroes, took them to the place of their crime, and burned them. For it was felt that the law did not furnish adequate means of punishment for such fiendish criminality.