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LYNCH LAW

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Originally appearing in Volume V17, Page 170 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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LYNCH See also:LAW , a See also:term loosely applied to various forms of executing rough popular See also:justice, or what is thought to be justice, for the See also:punishment of offenders by a See also:summary See also:procedure, ignoring, or even contrary to, the strict forms of law. The word lynching " originally signified a See also:whipping for reformatory purposes with more or less disregard for its legality " (See also:Cutler), or the infliction of See also:minor punishments without recourse to law; but during and after the Reconstruction See also:Period in the See also:United States, it came to mean, generally, the summary infliction of See also:capital punishment. Lynch law is frequently prevalent in sparsely settled or frontier districts where See also:government is weak and See also:officers of the law too few and too powerless to enforce law and preserve See also:order. The practice has been See also:common in all countries when unsettled frontier conditions existed, or in periods of threatened anarchy. In what are considered civilized countries it is now found mainly in See also:Russia, See also:south-eastern See also:Europe and in See also:America, but it is essentially and almost peculiarly an See also:American institution. The origin of the name is obscure; different writers have attempted to trace it to See also:Ireland, to See also:England, to South Carolina, to See also:Pennsylvania and to See also:Virginia. It is certain that the name was first used in America, but it is not certain whether it came from Lynch's See also:Creek, South Carolina, where summary justice was administered to outlaws, or from Virginia and Pennsylvania, where men named Lynch were noted for dealingout - summary punishment to offenders.' In Europe See also:early examples of a similar phenomenon are found in the proceedings of the Vehmgerichte in See also:medieval See also:Germany, and of See also:Lydford law, gibbet law or See also:Halifax law, See also:Cowper justice and Jeddart justice in the thinly settled and border districts of See also:Great See also:Britain; and since the term " lynch law " came into colloquial use, it is loosely employed to See also:cover any See also:case in which a portion of the community takes the See also:execution of its ideas of justice into its own hands, irrespective of the legal authorities. In America during the 18th and 19th centuries the See also:population See also:expanded westward faster than well-See also:developed See also:civil institutions could follow, and on the western frontier were always desperadoes who lived by preying on the better classes. To suppress these desperadoes, in the See also:absence of strong legal institutions, resort was continually made to lynch law. There was little See also:necessity for it until the See also:settlement crossed the See also:Alleghany Mountains, but the following instances of lynching in the See also:East may be mentioned: (1) the mistreatment of See also:Indians in New England and the See also:Middle Colonies in disregard of See also:laws protecting them; (2) the See also:custom found in various colonies of administering summary justice to wife-beaters, idlers and other See also:obnoxious persons; (3) the acts of the Regulators of See also:North Carolina, 1767–1771; (4) the popular tribunals of the Revolutionary period, when the disaffection toward Great Britain weakened the authority of the civil governments and the See also:war replaced them by popular governments, at a See also:time when the hostilities between " Patriots " and " Tories " were an incentive to extra-legal violence. In the South, lynching methods were See also:long employed in dealing with See also:agitators, See also:white and See also:black, who were charged with endeavouring to excite the slaves to insurrection or to See also:crime against their masters, and in dealing with See also:anti-See also:slavery agitators generally. In the See also:West, from the Alleghanies to the See also:Golden See also:Gate, the See also:pioneer settlers resorted to popular justice to get rid of bands of outlaws, and to regulate society during that period when laws were weak or confused, when the laws made in the East did not suit western conditions, and when courts and officials were scarce and distant.

The Watauga settlements and the " See also:

State " of See also:Franklin furnished examples of lynch law procedure almost reduced to organization. Men trained in the rough school of the See also:wilderness came to have more regard for See also:quick, ready-made, See also:personal justice than for abstract justice and statutes; they were educated to defend themselves, to look to no law for See also:protection or regulation; consequently they became impatient of legal forms and lawyers' technicalities; an See also:appeal to See also:statute law was looked upon with suspicion, and, if some personal See also:matter was involved, was likely to result in deadly private feuds. Thus were formed the habits of thought and See also:action of the western pioneers. Lynch law, not civil law, cleared the western forests, valleys and See also:mountain passes of See also:horse and See also:cattle thieves, and other robbers and outlaws, gamblers and murderers. This was especially true of See also:California and the states of the far West. H. H. See also:Bancroft, the historian of Popular Tribunals, wrote in 1887 that " thus far in the See also:history of these Pacific States far more has been done toward righting wrongs and administering justice outside the See also:pale of law than within it." However, the lack of regard for law fostered by the conditions described led to a survival of the lynching See also:habit after the necessity for it passed away. In parts of the See also:Southern states, where the whites are few and greatly outnumbered by the blacks, certain of the conditions of the West have prevailed, and since emancipation released the blacks from See also:restraint many of the latter have been lawless and turbulent. The Reconstruction, by giving to the blacks temporary See also:political supremacy, increased the See also:friction between the races, and greatly ' The usual explanation is that the name was derived from See also:Charles Lynch (1736-1796), a justice of the See also:peace in Virginia after 1774, who in 1780, toward the See also:close of the War of See also:Independence, greatly exceeded his See also:powers in the punishment of Tories or See also:Loyalists detected in a See also:conspiracy in the neighbourhood of his See also:home in See also:Bedford See also:county, Va. Lynch was a See also:man of See also:influence in his community, was for many years a member of the Virginia legislature, was a member of the famous Virginia See also:Convention of 1776 and was later (in 1781) an officer in the American See also:army. See an See also:article, " The Real See also:Judge Lynch," in the See also:Atlantic Monthly, vol. lxxxviii.

(See also:

Boston, 1901). deepened See also:prejudice. The numerous protective See also:societies of whites, 1865–1876, culminating in the Ku Klux See also:movement, may be described as an application of lynch law. With the increase of See also:negro crimes came an increase of lynchings, due to prejudice, to the fact that for some time after Reconstruction the governments were relatively weak, especially in the districts where the blacks outnumber the whites, to the fact that negroes nearly always See also:shield criminals of their own See also:race against the whites, and to the frequent occurrence of the crime of See also:rape by negro men upon white See also:women. Since 1882 the See also:Chicago See also:Tribune has collected See also:statistics of lynching, and some interesting facts may be deduced from these tables.' During the twenty-two years from 1882 to 1903 inclusive, the See also:total number of persons lynched in the United States was 3337, the number decreasing during the last See also:decade; of these 2385 were in the South and 752 in the North; of those lynched in the East and West 602 were white and 75 black, and of those in the South 567 were white and 1985 black.2 Lynchings occur mostly during periods of idleness of the See also:lower classes; in the summer more are lynched for crimes against the See also:person and in the See also:winter (in the West) for crimes against See also:property; the See also:principal causes of lynching in the South are See also:murder and rape, in the North and West, murder and offences against property; more blacks than whites were lynched between 1882 and 1903, the See also:numbers being 2060 negroes, of whom 40 were women, and 1169 whites, of whom 23 were women; of the 707 blacks lynched for rape 675 were in the South; 783 blacks were lynched for murder, and 753 of these were in the South; most of the lynchings of whites were in the West; the lynching of negroes increased somewhat outside of the South and decreased somewhat in the South. Lynching decreases and disappears in a community as the population grows denser and civil institutions grow stronger; as better communications and See also:good See also:police make it harder to commit crime; and as public sentiment is educated to demand legal rather than illegal and irregular infliction of punishment for even the most horrible of crimes. See See also:James E. Cutler, Lynch Law (New See also:York, 1905), an admirable and unbiased discussion of the subject; H. H. Bancroft, Popular Tribunals (2 vols., See also:San Francisco, 1887) ; C. H. Shinn, See also:Mining Camps: A Study in American Frontier Government (New York, 1885) ; and J.

C. Lester and D. L. See also:

Wilson, Ku Klux Klan (New York, 1905). (W. L.

End of Article: LYNCH LAW

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