Lynching redux

Thu Aug 4 22:09:11 UTC 2005

Now I wonder if the act of being seized by a mob once constituted "lynching," with the violent punishment requiring additional specification.

The OED editors seem to recognize at least some of these considerations. They define _lynch_, v. as

"To condemn and punish by lynch law. In early use, implying chiefly the infliction of punishment such as whipping, tarring and feathering, or the like; now only, to inflict sentence of death by lynch law."

_Lynch law_ is defined as,

 "The practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority; it is now limited to the summary execution of one charged with some flagrant offence."

There's an unusually full etymological note accompanying the entry. OED's first ex. of "lynch law" is from 1811.

JL

"Baker, John" <JMB at STRADLEY.COM> wrote:
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Thanks. A couple of additional thoughts: In the earlier decades, lynching apparently suggested, but did not necessarily require, extrajudicial punishment by whipping, just as today it suggests, but does not necessarily require, a mob hanging. A whipping is probably intended in the 1841 Louisiana cite, which does not involve vigilante justice.

The turning point seems to come around 1877, the end of Reconstruction. Prior to that time, lynchings were infrequent and did not normally result in death. After about 1877, lynchings became much more frequent and normally did result in death. However, some cases after that time leave open the possibility that a lynching could be something short of a homicide. Even the 1878 Louisiana case I quote below refers to "lynching him and hanging him," leaving open the possibility that two different things may be involved. (Perhaps a whipping followed by a hanging?) An 1896 South Carolina statute, discussed in Brown v. Orangeburg County, 55 S.C. 45, 32 S.E. 764 (1899), refers to "lynching when death ensues." Similarly, an 1896 Ohio statute, discussed in Caldwell v. Board of County Commissioners, 4 Ohio N.P. 249 (Ohio Com. Pl. 1897), says that "any act of violence exercised by them [sc. a mob] upon the body of any person, shall constitute a 'lynching'"; the violence in the case was disabling,
 but not fatal.

John Baker

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 3:34 PM
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Subject: Re: Lynching redux

Bravo for these cites John.

JL

"Baker, John" wrote:
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Most of the early legal citations imply that lynching did not necessarily result in the death of the lynchee:

"That Slaughter had been, some years before, taken out and lynched. That he was of infamous character, and, on that account, great and almost universal prejudice existed against him." Slaughter v. Commonwealth, 38 Va. (11 Leigh) 681 (Va. Gen. Ct. 1841). Mr. Slaughter was still alive at the time of the events in question, so his lynching some years before was apparently nonfatal.

"The charge in the declaration does not import a crime. The meaning is, that the plaintiff had been whipped on an accusation of stealing hogs. It cannot be inferred from the language employed, that the defendant meant to charge, that the plaintiff had been whipped by the sentence of a court for stealing hogs. It is nothing more than a statement, that he had been lynched on a charge of hog stealing." Holley v. Burgess, 9 Ala. 728 (1846).

"After he was arrested, some of the company suggested that he should be lynched and made to tell where Bryant was; that one or more of the company said to Morehead it would be better for him to confess; that it was Bryant they were after mainly; that he would probably be made state's evidence; and that, if he would tell all he knew, they would make it go as lightly with him as possible." Morehead v. State, 28 Tenn. (9 Hum.) 635 (1849).

"The section of the Code on which the indictment was framed, reads thus: "All persons, to the number of two or more, who abuse, whip or beat any person, upon any accusation, real or pretended, or to force such person to confess himself guilty of any offence," &c.--Code, § 3108. To make out the offence contemplated by the first part of this section, it is essential that the accusation should be the moving cause of the abuse or violence. The term ""accusation" must not be confounded with the act on which it is based. It means something distinct from, and independent of it. If two persons were to bring a charge against a third, and beat him upon provocation of the act complained of, that is very different from inflicting the same violence upon him, not from the provocation of the act itself, but because they believed him guilty of the accusation brought against him, for the commission of it. The one is simply an act of private vengeance, while the other implies, to some extent, the
 usurpation of legal authority--to try and punish upon a charge--what is commonly called lynching." Underwood v. State, 25 Ala. 70 (1854).

"That if the jury believe from the evidence, that the defendant, and other persons, formed the design of committing personal violence on the body of the said Wilkinson, as by lynching, or otherwise, but did not design to take his life . . . ." State v. Shelledy, 8 Iowa (8 Clarke) 477 (1859).

Following these, there are a number of cases where the term is used ambiguously. Except for one anomalous 1853 case, there are no uses that clearly mean a vigilante killing until 1878. (I only searched for "lynched" and "lynching," because a search for "lynch" is inundated with results for the common surname.)

"In a loud voice Copeland charged him with being a swindler, that he ought to have his guts lynched out. Willard bid for some article, and Copeland turned around and said to him, "have you got the money for it?" Willard replied, "I have." Copeland then said, "God damn him, if it was not for the law I would murder him;" "that he ought to be lynched to death."" State v. Jennings, 18 Mo. 435 (1853). The decedent was in fact whipped to death.

"Defendant is a white man: he killed - in the parish of St. Charles - one Joseph Johnson, who belonged to the colored class, and the application for a change of venue is founded on the facts that - in said parish - the jury is composed of exclusively individuals of the same class as the deceased - that the homicide created considerable excitement and commotion in the locality where it occurred, and that several colored men manifested the intention of lynching him and hanging him without judge or jury - that, on account of the prejudice thus existing against him, he could not obtain an impartial trial in either the parish of St. Charles or any other parish of the Fourth Judicial District." State v. Williams, 30 La.Ann. 1028 (La. 1878). The defendant, who had been found guilty of manslaughter by an African-American jury, was unsuccessful in his application for a change of venue, although a retrial was ordered on a procedural technicality.

After about this point, the term becomes more common and is more likely to refer to a mob hanging.

There is also one early citation in which lynching does not seem to refer to vigilante justice at all:

"That . . . the plaintiff . . . was then handed over to the said Routh and Harmanson who conveyed him to the house of one Peggy Philips, declaring that their object was to force him to surrender all his interest in the partnership to defendant; and that if he would not do it voluntarily he should be lynched into it; that defendant and his party finding that persuasion was of no avail, took the petitioner at some distance from the house and there told him in a tone and manner indicative of force and violence, not to be misunderstood, that they were then prepared to deal with him as he might refuse or comply with the proposition made to him for the last time to surrender to defendant all his interest in the partnership, property for $3000; that the plaintiff finding himself in the power of an armed party and conscious that resistance was useless, assented to every thing proposed . . . ." Copeland v. Mickie, 17 La. 286 (1841).

John Baker

-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of George Thompson
Sent: Thursday, August 04, 2005 10:42 AM
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Subject: Re: Lynching redux

As regards the question of whether "lynching" always signified an extra- legal execution, I have 3 very early occurences -- not antedatings, however -- in which it did not. By the end of the 19th C the word may have been understood differently, of course.

After being lynched by the citizens, he was permitted to escape. New- York American, July 13, 1837, p. 2, col. 6

LYNCHING. [The headline to a brief story: Anthony Gallagher was caught stealing shoes from Anderson's shoe store, Chatham street; he's given the choice of arrest or a beating] New York Daily Express, March 27, 1838, p. 2, col. 3

1843: Dr. Wells, of Madison county, Ohio, charged with habitually whipping his wife, was lately taken from his house at night by some of his neighbors and severely lynched. New York Daily Express, March 8, 1843, p. 2, col. 4

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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