“There is nothing that I anticipate with so much satisfaction and security as the rapid development of society in our new country. Its elements are rude certainly, and heterogeneous. The first settlers, unprotected, and unassisted amid dangers and difficulties, have been accustomed from early youth to rely on their own powers; and they surrender with reluctance, and only by halves, their right of defence against every aggression, even to the laws which themselves have constituted.
“They have been anxiously studious of mildness in the forming of these laws, and when, in practice, they seem inefficient, they too frequently proceed with Indian perseverance to acts of vengeance, inconsistent with the duty of forbearance essential to social man. Hence deeds of savage and even ferocious violence are too common to be viewed with the abhorrence due to them.
“This disposition is evinced continually, and acted on without any feeling of private or personal animosity.
“If a man, whom the public voice has proclaimed a thief or a swindler, escapes from justice for want of a legal proof of his guilt, though the law and a jury of his fellow citizens have acquitted him, ten to one but he is met with before he can quit the neighborhood, and, tied up to a sapling, receives a scourging that marks him for the rest of his life.
“In Kentucky, whose institutions have acquired greater maturity, such events have taken place some years ago; but now they would scarcely be tolerated, and they will soon be matter of history only, in Indiana and Illinois.
“No crime but murder ‘of the first degree’ is punished with death, in any of the western states, nor, I believe, in the Union. In Kentucky there is a general penitentiary, for the punishment of other offences by imprisonment and labour.”[[127]]
William Newnham Blane, who traveled through the United States and Canada in the years 1822 and 1823, described the lynch-law procedure of that time as follows:
“After leaving Carlyle, I took the Shawnee town road, that branches off to the S. E., and passed the Walnut Hills, and Moore’s Prairie. These two places had a year or two before been infested by a notorious gang of robbers and forgers, who had fixed themselves in these wild parts, in order to avoid justice. As the country became more settled, these desperadoes became more and more troublesome. The inhabitants therefore took that method of getting rid of them, that had been adopted not many years ago in Hopkinson and Henderson counties Kentucky, and which is absolutely necessary in new and thinly settled districts, where it is almost impossible to punish a criminal according to legal forms.
“On such occasions therefore, all the quiet and industrious men of a district form themselves into companies, under the name of ‘Regulators.’ They appoint officers, put themselves under their orders, and bind themselves to assist and stand by each other. The first step they then take, is to send notice to any notorious vagabonds, desiring them to quit the State in a certain number of days, under the penalty of receiving a domiciliary visit. Should the person who receives the notice refuse to comply, they suddenly assemble, and when unexpected, go, in the night time, to the rogue’s house, take him out, tie him to a tree, and give him a severe whipping, every one of the party striking him a certain number of times.
“This discipline is generally sufficient to drive off the culprit; but should he continue obstinate, and refuse to avail himself of another warning, the Regulators pay him a second visit, inflict a still severer whipping, with the addition probably of cutting off both his ears. No culprit has ever been known to remain after a second visit. For instance, an old man, the father of a family, all of whom he educated as robbers, fixed himself at Moore’s Prairie, and committed numerous thefts, &c. &c. He was hardy enough to remain after the first visit, when both he and his sons received a whipping. At the second visit the Regulators punished him very severely, and cut off his ears. This drove him off, together with his whole gang; and travellers can now pass in perfect safety, where it was once dangerous to travel alone.