[129]. See pp. 291–292 for this extract. The letters which compose Judge Hall’s book were mostly printed in The Port Folio between 1821 and 1825, but the letter in which he speaks of lynch-law first appeared in the printed volume of 1828. (M.)
[130]. This expression is used in the Illinois agreement of 1820 (see below), and that document, if genuine, furnishes the earliest instance of its use known to the present writer.
[131]. This statement is made on the authority of McConnel (see below), but compare C. J. Latrobe: “Ramble in America,” (N. Y., 1836, 2d ed.), Let. VII, I, 96.
[132]. J. L. McConnel: “Western Characters or Types of Border Life in the Western States” (1853), pp. 244–245. (M.) This extract is copied verbatim, the names of the twelve men being omitted by McConnel. Of the genuineness of the document McConnel says: “I am not sure that I can vouch for its authenticity, but all who are familiar with the history of those times, will recognise, in its peculiarities, the characteristics of the people who then inhabited this country. The affectation of legal form in such a document as this would be rather amusing, were it not quite too significant; at all events, it is entirely ‘in keeping’ with the constitution of a race who had some regard for law and its vindication, even in their most high-handed acts. The technical phraseology, used so strangely, is easily traceable to the little ‘Justice’s Form Book,’ which was then almost the only law document in the country; and though the words are rather awkwardly combined, they no doubt gave solemnity to the act in the eyes of its sturdy signers.”
[133]. J. L. McConnel: “Western Characters,” &c., p. 176.
[134]. Niles’ Register, July 19, 1834 (46: 352).
[135]. The Liberator, Nov. 5, 1831 (1: 180).
The publication of this paper was begun in Boston in 1831, by William Lloyd Garrison, the enthusiastic agitator of the anti-slavery cause. His efforts to make his lists of “Southern Atrocities” as large as possible render his paper a valuable source of information on the subject of lynch-law, particularly lynch-law as applied to negroes prior to the Civil War.
[136]. Liberator, Oct. 29, 1831 (1: 174).
[137]. Ibid., Oct. 1, 1831 (1: 157).