LYNCH-LAW
AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE HISTORY OF LYNCHING IN THE UNITED STATES
BY
JAMES ELBERT CUTLER, PH.D.
_Instructor in Economics in Wellesley College; sometime Henry C.
Robinson Fellow and Instructor in Political Economy in Yale University_
❦
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
LONDON AND BOMBAY
1905
Copyright, 1905
By LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
_All rights reserved_
_The Plimpton Press Norwood Mass._
FOREWORD
Few people are able to read about lynch-executions, with atrocious forms
of torture and cruel death, such as have occurred from time to time
within ten years in this country, without a feeling of national shame.
It is necessary that facts should be known and that public opinion
should be corrected as to the ethics of that mode of dealing with crime.
Lynch-law is a very different thing where laws and civil institutions
are in full force and activity from what it is where they are wanting.
It is not admissible that a self-governing democracy should plead the
remissness of its own selected agents as an excuse for mob-violence. It
is a disgrace to our civilization that men can be put to death by
painful methods, which our laws have discarded as never suitable, and
without the proofs of guilt which our laws call for in any case
whatsoever. It would be a disgrace to us if amongst us men should burn a
rattlesnake or a mad dog. The badness of the victim is not an element in
the case at all. Torture and burning are forbidden, not because the
victim is not bad enough, but because we are too good. It is on account
of what we owe to ourselves that these methods are shameful to us, if we
descend to them. It is evident, however, that public opinion is not
educated up to this level. The reader of the present book will learn
very interesting facts about the causes alleged for lynching, and about
the public view of that crime. Many current errors will be corrected,
and many notions which are irrelevant, although they are popularly
believed to be germane and important, will be set aside.
W. G. SUMNER.
NEW HAVEN, CONN., February, 1905.
PREFACE
In making this investigation into the history of lynching in the United
States, my point of view has been that of a student of society and
social phenomena. The purpose of the investigation has not been
primarily to write the history of lynching, but to determine from the
history the causes for the prevalence of the practice, to determine what
the social conditions are under which lynch-law operates, and to test
the validity of the arguments which have been advanced in justification
of lynching.
At the present time many positive opinions are held with reference to
lynching, and these are quite at variance one with another. Any one who
attempts to investigate a subject under such conditions cannot hope to
escape criticism; neither can he hope to have given the subject equal
consideration from every standpoint. The most that one can say is that
he has pursued the investigation with perfect honesty of purpose and
with openness of mind. To this study of the history of lynching I have
brought no theories to prove and no conscious prejudices to confirm. My
first endeavor has been to obtain all the facts possible; my final
endeavor has been to point out the conclusions clearly warranted by such
facts.
The material for a study of this nature is found in a wide range of
sources and I gratefully record here my obligations to those who have
aided me in the task of collecting and sifting this material. For some
very valuable notes on the early history of lynch-law I am indebted to
Mr. Albert Matthews, of Boston, Massachusetts. Of his notes I have made
free use, indicating my obligation to him in each instance, either by
the use of the letter (M) or by special mention. Six of the chapters
have been read by him in the manuscript, and he has given me much
encouragement and kindly criticism during the preparation of these pages
for publication.
For many valuable suggestions during the prosecution of this study I am
indebted to members of the Faculty of the Social Sciences of Yale
University, especially to Professors Sumner, Farnam, Bourne, and Keller.
The editors of the _Yale Review_ have very courteously permitted me to
use in Chapter VIII the material which was published in a condensed form
in the _Yale Review_ for August, 1904. To many others whom I cannot here
mention by name I desire to express my thanks and acknowledge my
indebtedness for information given in response to inquiries.
The number of requests which have come to hand for copies of this study,
from persons living in various sections of the United States as well as
in Europe, and the attention that has been given the subject of
lynchings in newspapers and magazines, indicate a desire on the part of
the general public to learn the facts concerning lynchings. By many it
is believed that in no other respect to-day is American civilization so
open to reproach as in its toleration of the practice of lynching, and
there is an increasing demand that this summary method of administering
justice be suppressed and utterly abolished. That this book may
contribute in some measure to a better understanding of this most
serious and difficult problem is the hope with which it is placed in the
hands of the reader.
J. E. C.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
_Introduction_ 1
CHAPTER II
_Origin of the Term Lynch-law_ 13
CHAPTER III
_Early Lynch-law_ 41
CHAPTER IV
_Lynch-law 1830–1860_ 90
CHAPTER V
_The Reconstruction Period_ 137
CHAPTER VI
_Lynchings_ 155
CHAPTER VII
_Lynch-law and its Justification_ 193
CHAPTER VIII
_Remedies_ 227
CHAPTER IX
_Some Conclusions_ 267
_List of Periodicals Cited_ 280
_Index_ 282
CHARTS
FACING
PAGE
I. Number lynched compared with number legally executed,
1882–1903 162
II. Number lynched according to months in different sections
of the U. S., 1882–1903 163
III. Percentages lynched for various causes by months,
1882–1903 170
IV. Number of Whites, Negroes and Others lynched according to
years, 1882–1903 171
V. Number of women (Whites and Negroes) lynched according to
years, 1882–1903 172
Proportion lynched for various causes, 1882–1903, Women
(Whites and Negroes).
VI. Percentages lynched for various causes by years,
1882–1903, Whites and Others 173
VII. Percentages lynched for various causes by years,
1882–1903, Negroes 174
VIII. Proportion lynched for various causes, 1882–1903, Whites
and Others 175
IX. Proportion lynched for various causes, 1882–1903, Negroes 176
X. Proportion lynched for various causes in Southern States,
1882–1903, Whites and Others 177
XI. Proportion lynched for various causes in Southern States,
1882–1903, Negroes 178
XII. Proportion lynched for various causes in Western States,
1882–1903 179
XIII. Proportion lynched for various causes in Eastern States,
1882–1903 180
LYNCH-LAW
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
It has been said that our country’s national crime is lynching. We may
be reluctant to admit our peculiarity in this respect and it may seem
unpatriotic to do so, but the fact remains that lynching is a criminal
practice which is peculiar to the United States. The practice whereby
mobs capture individuals suspected of crime, or take them from the
officers of the law, and execute them without any process at law, or
break open jails and hang convicted criminals, with impunity, is to be
found in no other country of a high degree of civilization. Riots and
mob executions take place in other countries, but there is no such
frequent administration of what may be termed popular justice which can
properly be compared with lynch-law procedure in the United States. The
frequency and impunity of lynchings in the United States is justly
regarded as a serious and disquieting symptom of American society.
In general, it may be said that the practice of summarily punishing
public offenders and suspected criminals is found in two distinct types
of society: first, the frontier type where society is in a formative
state and the civil regulations are not sufficiently established to
insure the punishment of offenders; and second, the type of society
which is found in older communities with well established civil
regulations, the people of which are ordinarily law-abiding and
conservative citizens. In this second type of society, recourse to
lynch-law procedure may be had either in times of popular excitement and
social disruption, or when there is a contrast in the population such as
is to be seen in the South between the whites and the negroes, or
against disreputable characters in the community for whose punishment
under the law no tangible evidence can be adduced, or against persons
guilty of committing some heinous offense which on account of its
atrocity and fiendishness is particularly shocking to the community.
In other countries one or more of these conditions has at times existed,
and summary methods of punishment to which lynch-law procedure in the
United States bears a close resemblance have been followed. In the
course of the settlement and development of this country, however, all
of these conditions have existed almost side by side. From colonial
times down to the present day there has been a section of the country
where the frontier type of society was to be found. At the same time
there has been an older, better settled section of the country, forming
a different type of society, where, though the judiciary was well
established and the apprehension and punishment of public offenders was
well provided for in the law, circumstances have arisen of such a nature
that the regular and legal administration of justice was deemed
inadequate or defective, and was therefore disregarded. As will be made
clear in the following pages, lynch-law has been resorted to in the
United States in times of popular excitement and social disruption; it
has been inflicted upon negroes, Indians, Italians, Mexicans; it has
been inflicted upon disreputable characters; it has been inflicted upon
persons guilty of heinous offenses.
The practice of lynching does not prevail in Canada[1]; nor is a similar
practice to be found in England, France, or Germany. The nearest
approach that can be found in Europe to the American practice of
lynching exists in the rural districts of little Russia where the
peasants sometimes adopt summary measures against horse-thieves. The
Russian law provides only a light punishment for horse-stealing, and,
since the peasant’s horse is almost his only property and is his chief
instrument of labor, summary methods seem necessary in order to check
the veritable plague of horse-stealing which breaks out every year as
soon as the dark nights of autumn begin. When a thief is caught, the
common way is for the men of the village to club him to death, each
trying to strike in such a way as to inflict no injury more serious than
a bruise. Another method is to tie the criminal by the feet to the tail
of a young and active colt which is then ridden at a gallop until little
is left of the horse-thief. There is also a mode of execution whereby
the thief is bound hand and foot to a bench or log, and the women of the
village thrust needles and pins into the soles of the victim’s feet and
other sensitive parts, until death ensues.[2]
Aside from this instance which is found in the loosely organized society
of the peasants in the rural districts of Russia, nothing like lynch-law
can be said to prevail in Europe. Occasionally mobs put persons to death
who have committed some brutal and outrageous crime. A newspaper report
states that the burgomaster of Stujhely, Hungary, was lynched in
November, 1902, for having set fire to his home in which were his wife,
father, mother, and three sisters, all of whom were burned to death. The
burgomaster had become angry at the members of his family for some
trifling cause, and his method of revenge so enraged his neighbors that
they immediately “took summary measures and lynched him.”[3] A similar
report tells of the lynching of a Bohemian village schoolmaster who
suddenly became insane and began shooting his revolver right and left
among his pupils, killing three and dangerously wounding three
others.[4] People in the lower stages of civilization, such as the
Melanesians, Micronesians, and the inhabitants of the Guinea Coast of
Africa, often have secret societies which take control of important
functions, such as the initiation of young persons arriving at maturity,
or the exaction of penalties for the transgression of customs and
traditions. In most cases these societies form an essential part of the
state, holding quite the place of the chief. Occasionally they
degenerate and create a reign of terror by their extortions and
exactions. Secret tribunals for thieves and robbers, like the society of
the “Old Ox,” have existed in China.[5] Such instances, however, merely
illustrate the general truth that summary methods of punishing offenders
are sometimes resorted to in every country in times of great popular
excitement or when some peculiarly atrocious crime has been perpetrated.
They in no way invalidate the assertion that the practice of lynching is
peculiarly an American institution.
Historically some parallels may be cited showing the execution of
summary justice under frontier conditions in other countries. In
Brande’s Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art, published in 1842,
it was stated that “lynch law may be called a democratic imitation of
the old feudal _Vehmgerichte_.” Reference was there made to the
“irregular and revengeful species of justice administered by the
populace in some parts of the United States,” evidently meaning the
operation of lynch-law on the western frontier at that time. Lynch-law
in the United States has never been administered by an organization so
perfect and extensive as that of the Vehmic courts.[6] The feudal
conditions have been lacking which made that organization possible. It
is only in its _raison d’être_ that the frontier type of lynch-law may
be compared to the Vehmic courts. The early settlers in this country
felt themselves compelled to resort to summary proceedings as a means of
protection; the civil government was not sufficiently organized and
established to insure the punishment of violators of the public peace
and security. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries utter
lawlessness and disregard of authority was prevailing in Germany, and
for a time the Vehmic courts afforded some protection against the
outrages of the princes and nobles. With the increasing strength of the
regular governments, however, the need of special protection diminished
and these tribunals gradually disappeared. Like the Vehmic courts, with
the establishment of the judiciary and a more effective execution of the
laws by the officials, the administration of lynch-law in the western
half of the United States has declined.
The tendency, it may be noted, for societies secretly organized for the
arbitrary punishment of offenders to pass into the control of the
persons against whom they were originally directed, is to be seen not
only in the history of the Vehmic courts but also in the history of the
Ku-Klux Klan and numerous vigilance societies in the United States. The
proceedings of such societies necessarily awaken distrust and fear among
the more quiet in the community, while the rogues, whose characters are
not yet known, hasten to obtain admittance, both as a shield against
enemies and a cloak to cover their own misdeeds. Soon their vindictive
actions and their rascalities excite the indignation of the community; a
counterparty of “moderators” must be formed to check the “regulators”;
then begins a deadly struggle for supremacy. Such, in brief, is the
abuse of lynch-law on the frontier. The tyranny of the Vehmic courts
becomes the taking of private vengeance, the feud and the _vendetta_,
under lynch-law.
The Vehmic courts, however, give no explanation for the presence of
lynch-law as an institution in American society. No connection can be
traced further than a few similarities in the methods adopted to put
down lawlessness at a time when the civil government proved weak and
inefficient.
Some writers have stated that lynch-law was anciently known in England
by the name of Lydford law and Halifax law, and that the same thing was
known in Scotland as Cowper justice and Jeddart or Jedburg justice.
Lydford law is defined in a dictionary of the seventeenth century as “a
certain Law whereby they first hang a Man and afterwards indite him.”[7]
One of Grose’s Proverbs reads:
“First hang and draw,
Then hear the cause by Lidford law.”
Westcott, in his “History of Devonshire,” has preserved some droll
verses about the town of Lydford. The first twelve lines are as follows:
“I oft have heard of Lydford law,
How in the morning they hange and draw,
And sit in judgement after;
At first I wondered at yt much,
But since I fynd the reasons such
As yt deserves no laughter.
“They have a castle on a hill,
I tooke it for an old wyndmill,
The vanes blowen off by weather:
To lye therein one night, ’tis guest,
’Twere better to be ston’d and prest,
Or hang’d; now chuse you whether.”[8]
It has been asserted, therefore, that “Lydford law became a proverbial
expression for summary punishment without trial.”[9] This, however, is
going further than the facts will allow, and is wholly misleading when
thus used to show the connection between Lydford law and lynch-law. It
would seem to imply that Lydford law in England was once as well known,
as a name for summary punishment, as lynch-law has become in this
country. As a proverbial expression Lydford law never came into general
use; it was confined to one section of England and never became more
than a localism.
In another part of England a certain summary procedure was known by the
name of Halifax law. In this case there was a trial followed by
immediate punishment. The trial was of a summary nature without adequate
opportunity of defense, and the punishment was irrevocable. The name,
Halifax law, originated from the so-called _gibbet law_ or custom in the
forest of Hardwick, coextensive with the parish of Halifax, under which
the frith burghers summarily tried any one charged with stealing goods
to the value of 13½ d., and could condemn him to be beheaded on the
market-day.[10]
Cowper justice is defined by Jamieson to mean “trying a man after
execution; the same with Jeddart, or Jedburgh justice,” and the latter
he defines as “a legal trial after the infliction of punishment.”
Jeddart justice refers to Jedburgh, a Scotch border town, where many of
the border raiders are said to have been hanged without the formality of
a trial. It is said that “in mockery of justice, assizes were held upon
them after that they had suffered.”[11]
All of these expressions, however, were entirely provincial. They were
merely different names used to characterize the methods employed in
various parts of England and Scotland for executing popular justice.
These practices differ from the administration of lynch-law in not
dispensing with all regular proceedings. Further, as will appear later,
the death penalty was not at first inflicted under lynch-law;
originally, lynching was synonymous with whipping. It is impossible,
therefore, to trace lynch-law back to these mediæval practices and find
in them any explanation for the existence of the practice of lynching in
the United States.
A general idea of the history of lynch-law in the United States is
obtained by noting the definitions of the term that have appeared from
time to time in the dictionaries. Brande’s Dictionary of Science,
Literature, and Art (1842)[12] contains the following: “Lynch Law. The
irregular and revengeful species of justice administered by the populace
in some parts of the United States is said to have been so called from a
Virginian farmer of the name of Lynch, who took the law into his hands
on some occasion, by chasing a thief, tying him to a tree, and flogging
him with his own hands.” A “University Edition” of Webster’s Dictionary
(1845) defines “Lynch-law” as “The practice of punishing men for crime
by private, unauthorized persons, without a legal trial”; and gives the
verb lynch meaning “to inflict punishment without the forms of law, as
by a mob.” Worcester’s Dictionary (1846) has “Lynch-law. An irregular
and revengeful species of justice, administered by the populace or a
mob, without any legal authority or trial. Brande.” For the verb lynch
the meaning is given, “To condemn and execute in obedience to the decree
of a multitude or mob, without a legal trial; sometimes practiced in the
new settlements in the southwest part of the United States. Qu. Rev.” In
Webster’s Dictionary (1848) “Lynch-law” is defined as “The practice of
punishing men for crimes or offenses by private, unauthorized persons,
without a legal trial. The term is said to be derived from a Virginia
farmer, named Lynch, who thus took the law into his own hands. (U.
S.)”[13]
Some important changes are noticeable in the definitions attached to
lynch-law forty years later. The Progressive Dictionary of the English
Language, edited by Samuel Fallows and published at Chicago in 1885,
gives this definition for the verb lynch: “To punish without the forms
of law; specifically to hang by mob-law.” In a note it is stated that
more than one etymology is claimed for the word. John S. Farmer in his
“Americanisms,” published at London in 1889, says the origin of the term
lynch-law “is wrapped in mystery; many explanations have been put
forward; none, however, are conclusive.” In Webster’s Dictionary,
edition of 1893, the following definition is found: “Lynch: To inflict
punishment upon, especially death, without the forms of law, as when a
mob captures and hangs a suspected person.” Lynch-law is defined in a
general way as “The act or practice by private persons of inflicting
punishment for crimes or offenses, without due process of law,” but this
note is added: “The term _Lynch law_ is said to be derived from a
Virginian named Lynch, who took the law into his own hands. But the
origin of the term is very doubtful.”[14]
There are two differences between the definitions formulated in the
forties and those formulated in the eighties and in recent years. In the
later definitions the operation of lynch-law is described as being much
more harsh and severe, and there is an expression of doubt as to the
origin of the term. In the earlier definitions death is not mentioned as
the ordinary penalty administered by lynch-law and the American origin
of the term is accepted without question. The doubt as to the origin
probably arose because of the number of stories which have appeared, all
claiming to account for its origin, and also because of the lack of any
careful investigation to determine the question authentically from
historical sources. The increased harshness expressed in the definitions
is, of course, due to the fact that the punishment inflicted under the
name of lynch-law has become more severe and inexorable. Lynching is now
practically synonymous with summary and illegal capital punishment at
the hands of a mob. In the following pages the history of this change
will be traced and the conditions noted which have led to the
continuance of the practice of lynching and given to it its increased
severity.
In the above citations to various definitions that have been given for
lynch-law it was noted that more than one origin has been claimed for
the term. An investigation into the circumstances surrounding its origin
will throw considerable light on the early history of lynch-law
procedure in the United States, and this question will therefore be
taken up in some detail.