The lynchings in the various States and Territories in 1900 were as follows:
| Alabama | 8 | New York | 0 |
| Arkansas | 6 | Nevada | 0 |
| California | 0 | North Carolina | 3 |
| Colorado | 3 | North Dakota | 0 |
| Connecticut | 0 | Ohio | 0 |
| Delaware | 0 | Oregon | 0 |
| Florida | 9 | Pennsylvania | 0 |
| Georgia | 16 | Rhode Island | 0 |
| Idaho | 0 | South Carolina | 2 |
| Illinois | 0 | South Dakota | 0 |
| Indiana | 3 | Tennessee | 7 |
| Iowa | 0 | Texas | 4 |
| Kansas | 2 | Vermont | 0 |
| Kentucky | 1 | Virginia | 6 |
| Louisiana | 20 | West Virginia | 2 |
| Maine | 0 | Wisconsin | 0 |
| Maryland | 1 | Washington | 0 |
| Massachusetts | 0 | Wyoming | 0 |
| Michigan | 0 | Arizona | 0 |
| Minnesota | 0 | District of Columbia | 0 |
| Mississippi | 20 | New Mexico | 0 |
| Missouri | 2 | Utah | 0 |
| Montana | 0 | Indian Territory | 0 |
| Nebraska | 0 | Oklahoma | 0 |
| New Jersey | 0 | Alaska | 0 |
| New Hampshire | 0 |
From these tables certain facts may be deduced. The first is that, in the year of which an analysis is given (1900), over nine-tenths of the lynchings occurred in the South, where only about one-third of the population of the country were, but where nine-tenths of the Negroes were; secondly, that, of these lynchings, about nine-tenths were of Negroes and one-third were in the three States where the Negroes are most numerous; thirdly, that, while the lynchings appear to be diminishing at the South, the ratio, at least, is increasing at the North. Of the lynchings in 1903, 12 occurred in the North and 92 in the South. Of the total number, 86 were Negroes, 17 were whites, and 1 a Chinaman. Among the alleged causes were murder, 47; criminal assault, 11; attempted criminal assault, 10; murderous assault, 7; “race prejudice,” 5. Of those in 1904 there were 82 Negroes and 4 whites; 81 occurred in the South and 5 in the North.
It further appears that, though after the war lynching in the South may have begun as a punishment for assault on white women, it has extended until of late less than one-fourth of the instances are for this crime, while over three-fourths of them are for murder, attempts at murder, or some less heinous offence. This may be accounted for, in part, by the fact that often the murders in the South partake somewhat of the nature of race-conflicts.
Over 2,700 lynchings in eighteen years, with a steady increase in the barbarity of the method and with the last the most shameful instance of this barbarity, are enough to stagger the mind. Either we are relapsing into barbarism, or there is some terrific cause for our reversion to the methods of mediævalism, and our laws are inefficient to meet it. The only gleam of light is that, of late years, the number appears to have diminished.
To get at the remedy, we must first get at the cause.
Although in early times there were occasional assaults and even some burnings at the stake these outrages appeared to have passed out of fashion and time was when the crime of assault was substantially unknown throughout the South. Though criminal assaults had been sufficiently common at one time for many of the States to adopt laws of Draconian severity relating to them, yet during the later period of slavery, the crime of rape did not exist, nor did it exist to any considerable extent for some years after emancipation.[42] During the war the men were away in the army, and the Negroes were the loyal guardians of the women and children. On isolated plantations and in lonely neighborhoods, women were as secure as in the streets of Boston or New York, indeed, were more secure.
Then came the period and process of Reconstruction, with its teachings. Among these was the teaching that the Negro was the equal of the white, that the white was his enemy, and that he must assert his equality. The growth of the idea was a gradual one in the Negro’s mind. This was followed by a number of cases where members of the Negro militia ravished white women; in some instances in the presence of their families.[43]
The result of the hostility between the Southern whites and Government at that time was to throw the former upon reliance on their own acts for their defence or revenge, with a consequent training in lawless punishment of acts which should have been punished by law. And here lynching, in its post-bellum stage, had its evil origin.[44]
It was suggested some time ago, in a thoughtful paper read by Professor Wilcox, of Washington, that a condition something like that which exists in the South at present, had its rise in France during the religious wars.