Note 39 — Chapter IV · THE LYNCHING OF NEGROES—ITS CAUSE AND ITS PREVENTION[39]

An interesting paper on “Lynch Law,” by Albert Matthews, of Boston, was published in The Nation, December 4, 1902. Mr. Matthews, after giving the numerous alleged derivations of the term, and reciting a score or so of instances in which “Lynch Law” had been applied (his first reference being to Wirt’s Life of Patrick Henry, 1818, page 372), states his conclusions, as follows:

“From this evidence and from other material in my possession, it appears that the original term was “Lynch’s Law”; that this was soon shortened to “Lynch (or lynch) Law,” and then to “Lynch”; that originally lynch law was a whipping or other personal chastisement; that lynch law originally obtained only in the border settlements, where the administration of justice either was, or was supposed to be uncertain; that in the early days of lynch law, innocent persons were sometimes punished, and suits for damages were by no means unknown; that, about 1830, writers regarded the practice as on the wane and likely soon to disappear altogether; that before about 1835 the victims of lynch law were generally whites, occasionally Indians, but never Negroes; that soon after 1830 a revival of lynch law took place, due to the anti-slavery agitation, and the practice spread throughout the country; that between 1830 and 1840 the term “lynch” underwent a change in meaning and “to lynch” began to acquire the sense of to put to death; that during the same period Negroes were first lynched; that about 1835, we first hear of “Judge Lynch”; that in recent years, lynching has been confined largely, but by no means wholly, to Negroes in the South and West. It further appears that there is a direct historical connection between the killing of a Negro in a highly civilized community in 1902 and the whipping of a white man along the frontiers in 1817. Step by step, the illegal whippings of 1817 have led to the illegal burnings alive of 1902. In short, the more civilized the country has become, the more brutal has been the punishment meted out under lynch law.”