Chapter IV: Lynch-Law 1830–1860 (2)

The summary execution of negroes did not, however, become a serious evil previous to the Civil War. So long as the negroes were valuable as slaves, it was a direct economic loss to the slave-holder if an able-bodied slave were put to death. In general, it was only in cases of real or supposed conspiracy against the whites, or in cases of insurrection, that the negroes were killed in a summary manner. Such was the case in Virginia at the time of the Nat Turner insurrection; such was the case in Mississippi in 1835 when it was discovered that the Murrell gang had laid plans for a general uprising among the slaves. A similar condition of affairs existed in northern Texas in 1860, when it was thought that strychnine had been distributed among the negroes and they had been instructed to put it in the wells and in the food of their masters.

Damages were sometimes claimed by owners for the loss of their slaves through illegal procedure. A suit was instituted in the year 1857 in the Jefferson Circuit Court of Kentucky against the city of Louisville for the value of the slaves George, Bill, and Jack, the murderers of the Joyce family. George and Bill had been hung by an infuriated mob, and Jack had cut his own throat in jail, in order to escape the fate which befell his companions. $1,500 each was claimed as damages by the owners of the negroes. The Louisville Courier in commenting upon the case said the suit would be of interest and importance, involving some delicate principles of law.[188] In 1858 a vigilance committee was established in Shelby County, Kentucky, whose method of procedure was described as follows: “They order white men and free negroes who have been concerned in evil deeds, to leave the county within three days. Any property belonging to a white man is to be appraised by three disinterested persons, and the price paid, after such person has been directed to leave the county. Slaves who are vicious must be removed, also, from Shelby county, by their masters.”[189] The property right in the slaves was generally recognized in cases where they committed offenses against a neighbor or a neighbor’s slaves. A common way of settling such matters was for a number of the planters to meet together and decide upon the amount of damages to be paid and what should constitute an equitable settlement, without going through any formal legal procedure. In Louisiana a tribunal formed in this way tried and gave sentence of death upon two negroes for violating the person of a young white girl on Christmas eve, 1856.[190]

An examination of the files of the Liberator shows that, during the ten years 1830–1840, in cases where masters, overseers, or mistresses were murdered by slaves, the law was allowed to take its course almost without exception. The same is true in the case of rape committed upon white women by negroes. The record stands, three slaves and one free negro legally executed for rape and two slaves legally executed for attempted rape. There are some instances reported of summary punishment, not death, being administered to negroes for inducing white girls to run away with them, or for living with white women.

There were also three instances of burning negroes at the stake during this period. These cases have been described above: one was the burning of two slaves near Mobile, Alabama, for murdering two children; another was the burning of the free mulatto at St. Louis for killing an officer; and the other was the burning of a slave in Arkansas for the murder of his master.

For the ten years 1850–1860, the record is somewhat different. Out of forty-six negroes put to death for the murder of owners or overseers, twenty were legally executed and twenty-six were summarily executed. Of the latter, one was a female slave who was taken from the constable and hanged upon a tree for the crime of beating her mistress to death, and another was a negro woman who was burned to death for poisoning her master. Eight of the remaining twenty-four negroes were summarily executed by being burned at the stake. For the crime of rape upon white women, three negroes were legally executed, and for attempted rape two were legally executed; while twelve negroes were more or less brutally put to death by mobs for having committed the crime. Of the latter, four were burned at the stake, three of whom had committed the double crime of rape and murder. Some other instances of rape and of attempted rape are reported, but no statement is made as to the manner or the nature of the punishment inflicted.

It cannot be said, however, that these cases of the infliction of capital punishment upon negroes without process of law were anything more than sporadic and isolated cases. They were scarcely more than local in their influence. The most important thing brought to light by the above comparison of the two ten-year periods is the tendency, in the later period, toward less reliance on legal procedure and toward greater readiness on the part of the people to take matters into their own hands. The newspapers in the fifties not only frequently excused summary procedure but often openly advocated it. One instance only will be cited and it is from a southern newspaper. In 1856, a Mr. Pearce, residing in Morgan County, Georgia, attempted to give one of his negroes a flogging for some misdemeanor. The negro picked up an ax and at one blow split his master’s head open. He then fled. While he was still at large the Madison Messenger printed the following: “Beyond doubt he will be captured before many hours. If he is, although we admire submission to the course pointed out by the law of the land, in this case so much of the brute has been manifested, we should be glad to see our citizens rise _en masse_, and avail themselves of Lynch law, and hang the rascal without court or jury.”[191]

The preceding paragraphs have made it clear that negroes occasionally suffered death under lynch-law previous to the Civil War. It was not common, however, to characterize the summary hanging of negroes as lynching. Such occurrences were neither common nor general enough to give to the verb lynch its modern meaning, even though they had been always designated as lynchings.

It was with reference to the lawless proceedings which took place in the western and southwestern portions of the United States in the fifties that the term lynch was first used in its modern sense. The vigilance committees which were then common in that section of the country often hung desperadoes and horse-thieves, and frequently when such persons were thus executed they were said to have been lynched. A paragraph in the Liberator, November 9, 1860 (p. 179), has the heading: “Four men Lynched in Texas.” The paragraph contains a clipping from a Texas paper describing the circumstances under which four men were found one morning hung in the public square of a town in Navarro County, and refers to the “many accounts of lynchings in Texas.”

Howitt’s Journal for February 12, 1848 (3: 109), contains an article entitled “American Lynching—The Desperadoes of the South-West.” The article is really a review of a book published under the title “The Desperadoes of the South-West,” which, according to the reviewer, gives a picture of the state of society in that section of the United States. Quotations from the book are given in which the author outlines the way the West was settled up and the difficulty of keeping prisoners until a regular trial could be had, and the exasperating delays and postponements brought about by pettifogging lawyers. The author describes the operation of lynch-law at that time in the following words:

“Then, after all other means of redress have been exhausted, the
honest, hard-working portion of the community organize themselves into
a community of lynchers, elect a captain, appoint a committee, and, as
they say, ‘take justice into their own hands.’... The company of
lynchers once formed, they proceed to the execution of summary
justice. It is easy to see what sad work they must make of it,
rendered furious, as they have been, by multitudinous wrongs. And
accordingly, they whip, bang, torture, burn, flay alive; and however
they may begin, end at last by acting like a band of savages. What
else could be expected of such men, however honest, however merciful,
stung to ungovernable rage by so many injuries, and now placed as
judges in their own case, in a position beyond responsibility? By and
by, the more cunning rogues take shelter under their protection, and
bawl out the loudest for justice. Then the fruit of ruin is ripe. Men
accuse their enemies of the most appalling crimes, in order to glut
feelings of private revenge. A hypocritical zeal for honesty becomes
the cloak for rapine and murder. Vengeance supplants law, and brute
force and fury trample down all show of order.... But the force is
never wholly on one side only. The lynchers, or ‘regulators,’ as they
are often called, soon find that their foes organize also; arm
themselves, and prepare for systematic resistance, under the
denomination of ‘moderators.’ Then commences a guerilla warfare as
dark and deadly in its hate, as the old English contest between the
Red and the White Roses. It is a war of utter extermination.”

Chambers’ Journal for February 17, 1855 (23: 101) contains an article entitled “American Jottings. Eccentricities in criminal jurisprudence—Lynch Law.” The following quotations are both illustrative and instructive:

“A respect for law and order is as conspicuous in general
circumstances in the greater part of the United States as it is in
England. This much may be said without prejudice to the fact, that
very strange things occasionally come to pass, particularly in the
south and west, in violation of the regular course of justice.... It
is doubtless the perfunctoriness in the administration of justice
which at times arouses the indignation of the public and causes them
to have recourse to what is called Lynch Law, in which respect
American society, in the more newly settled parts of the country, may
be said to be at the stage of the rough populace of Edinburgh when
they interrupted the ordinary course of justice, and laid violent
hands on Captain Porteous. It is thus interesting to note how long it
is before a people acquire the habit of implicit submission to the
maxims of law—the time, of course, being proportioned according as the
administrators of that law are in themselves unworthy of respect. The
ancient venality of judges and juries in Scotland, now the theme of
romance, would appear to be still matched on the banks of the
Mississippi, and sometimes, as popular feeling inclines, it leads to
similar results.... Objectionable and dangerous as lynching may be
considered in the abstract there can be little doubt of its propriety
practically in certain conditions of American society. When judges and
courts are leagued with desperadoes, or when peculiar difficulties
stand in the way of a prompt administration of justice, the public, in
self-defense, feel impelled to interfere. At the settlement of
California, and before society had time to establish regular
tribunals, or to give due efficacy to the law, life and property would
not have been safe for a moment, unless a Vigilance Committee had
charged itself with the duty of lynching. Even when, in such newly
opened territories, judges are appointed, only a small advance is made
towards a vigorous legal administration. Of American judges it needs
to be recollected that their position is often not such as to command
respect. A judge of the supreme courts in England is a being aloof in
every respect from the people, and he scrupulously abstains from
interference personally in matters which might by possibility come
before him in his judicial capacity. An American judge, on the other
hand, is not dissevered from the ordinary action of society; and if he
looks forward to a governorship, or some other high function, he
requires to cultivate a certain popularity.”

In these extracts there is presented very clearly the character of the illegal and summary proceedings to which the term lynch-law was generally and commonly applied in the fifties. The quoted passages likewise indicate the attitude of public sentiment at that time toward such proceedings and the frequency of their occurrence. The tendency for vigilance societies organized in the interests of law and order to pass quickly into the control of the lawless and the vicious, or for counter-organizations to be formed by the lawless element in the population, is also given due prominence.

The Vigilance Committee movement in the West attained its highest state of organization and effectiveness under the San Francisco Committees of Vigilance of 1851 and of 1856. The discovery of gold in 1848 had brought to California in a few years men from all parts of the world. National characteristics came into conflict. Mexicans, Frenchmen, Irishmen, and Americans were suddenly thrown together in a virgin territory. The establishment of civil government and judicial tribunals could not keep pace with the rapid increase in population. When such civil government was begun, the control which the vicious and corrupt element in the population was able to exercise over it rendered it ineffectual. It was a time of social irresponsibility, and serious crimes were of common occurrence. Out of five hundred and thirty-five homicides which occurred in California during the year 1855, there were but seven legal executions.[192] It was under these conditions and on the ground that some such organization was necessary to bring about order and security, that the two San Francisco Vigilance Committees were organized. “Each hanged four men and banished about thirty. Each rescued two prisoners from the county jail by means of surprise parties.... The crimes committed by the victims of the first tribunal were against property and life, while those of the second were strongly tinctured with political immorality.... The reformation of 1851 was superficial and temporary; that of 1856 radical and permanent.”[193] On the whole, though the measures taken seem extreme, these committees accomplished their end remarkably well, and it is to their credit that they promptly disbanded when their time of usefulness had passed.

Committees of Vigilance were formed elsewhere than in the city of San Francisco, however. Many places in California during the early history of the State had similar committees, though outside of San Francisco they were usually organized only temporarily to deal with particular cases. Similar “Popular Tribunals” existed in Utah, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Arizona, New Mexico, and Colorado during the early period of their settlement. Bancroft says at the close of his first volume on Popular Tribunals: “I have given in this volume many examples of Popular Tribunals, but the half has not been told. It is safe to say that thus far in the history of these Pacific States far more has been done toward righting wrongs and administering justice outside the pale of law than within it.”

Further evidence of the prevalence of lynch-law during the colonization of the territory west of the Mississippi River is furnished by an editorial in the New York Times of March 19, 1864, written under the title “Judge Lynch.” The opening sentences are as follows: “Our fellow-citizens in the far West, in the mineral territories bordering upon the Rocky Mountains, and in those on the other side of the mountains, are holding Lynch courts in extraordinary number, and carrying out the decrees of that ferocious judge with unprecedented energy. Our latest files from the distant regions of Idaho, Nevada, Utah, &c., contain accounts of executions in numbers that we think were never equalled even in the early days of California settlement, nor in any part of the West.” Then follows a recital of various instances, twenty or more robbers and murderers hung in Idaho Territory, four murderers hung by a “Citizens Association” in the Territory of Nevada, &c. It is stated that on Thursday of that week bills were passed in Congress enabling Nevada and two other Territories to form constitutions preparatory to their admission to the Union as States. As a condition to their admission an irrevocable ordinance was provided prohibiting slavery, and the writer of the editorial remarks, “we think lynching might have been added.”

Lynch-law prevailed to a large extent, also, during the border troubles attending the outbreak of the Civil War. Particularly was this the case in Kansas where, along with the guerrilla warfare that went on for a number of years, many instances of summary procedure occurred that may be properly classified under lynch-law. A correspondent of the New York Tribune in Lawrence, K. T., wrote on May 30, 1858: “There is a very general disposition to pass over the helplessly useless forms of Territorial law and corrupt Federal courts, and try these parties (_i.e._, horse-thieves) by Lynch law.”[194]

The lynch-law procedure of the fifties that was most commonly mentioned and described in the newspapers and periodicals was that that prevailed in the western part of the United States. Bodies of citizens, organized secretly or openly under the names of “vigilance committees,” “vigilance societies,” “vigilantes,” “regulators,” “law-and-order men,” “Citizens’ Associations,” &c., punished with summary severity horse-thieves, cattle-thieves, highway robbers, counterfeiters, burglars, and swindlers, as well as murderers. Certain rude forms of trial were generally observed, acquittals were rare but not entirely unknown, and the punishment was usually death by hanging. The frequency with which lynch-law was resorted to at this time is to be referred, both to the lack of a well established civil government, and to a doubt on the part of the people as to the adequacy of the ordinary legal machinery.

It was the use of the word lynching in connection with these summary proceedings against white men of desperate character, the criminals of the frontier region west of the Mississippi, during the period of settlement, that first gave to it its modern meaning of putting to death. After the Civil War, when the Southern States were being reconstructed and the whites were threatened with negro domination, summary practices were adopted against the negroes. The negro had ceased to be valuable as property and was looked upon as a dangerous political factor in the community; to take his life was thought to be the easiest and quickest way to dispose of him. The adoption of this plan in many parts of the South gave for the word lynching a new application. Since the Reconstruction Period, then, to lynch has generally meant to put to death. The infliction of any minor punishment without legal trial still constitutes lynch-law, but the simple term “lynching” usually implies capital punishment. It is in this sense that the term will be used throughout the remainder of this investigation.