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.