LYNCH LAW, a term loosely applied to various forms of executing rough popular justice, or what is thought to be justice, for the punishment of offenders by a summary procedure, ignor ing, or even contrary to, the strict forms of law. The origin of the name is obscure ; different writers have attempted to trace it to Ireland, to England, to South Carolina and to Virginia. (See "The Real Judge Lynch," in the Atlantic Monthly, vol. lxxxviii., Boston, 19o1.) The practice has been common in all countries when unsettled conditions existed, or in threatened anarchy. In Europe early examples of such a practice are found in the proceedings of the Vehmgerichte in mediaeval Germany, and of Lydford law, gibbet law or Halifax law, Cowper justice and Jeddart justice in the thinly settled border districts of Great Britain. In later years it is found mainly in Russia, in south-eastern Europe and in the United States. Under the term "lynch law" in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries it has come to be considered peculiarly American. Within the United States the population expanded westward faster than well-developed civil institutions could follow, and on the frontier there were always desperadoes who lived by prey ing on the better classes. To suppress these outlaws resort was often made to lynch law. 'There was little necessity for it until the settlement crossed the Allegheny mountains, but the following instances of lynching in the East may be mentioned : (I) the mistreatment of Indians in New England and the middle Colonies in disregard of laws protecting them; (2) the custom found in various Colonies of administering summary justice to wife-beaters, idlers and other obnoxious persons; (3) the acts of the regulators of North Carolina, 1767-71; (4) the popular tribunals of the Revolutionary period, when the disaffection toward Great Britain weakened the authority of the civil governments and the war replaced them by popular governments, at a time when the hostilities between "patriots" and "tories" were an incentive to extra-legal violence. The entire United States thus had a heritage of extra-legal methods which, long after the Revolution, persisted in the drastic methods used in dealing with agitators among the negroes in the South and with the outlaws on the westward moving frontier.
The Watauga settlements and the "State" of Franklin furnished examples of lynch law procedure taking the place of government. Men trained in the rough school of the wilderness came to have more regard for quick, personal justice than for abstract justice and statutes; they were educated to defend themselves, to look to no law for protection or regulation. Consequently, they became impatient of legal forms and technicalities and appeal to statute law was discouraged. Thus were formed the habits of thought
and action of the Western pioneers. Lynch law, not civil law, cleared the Western forests, valleys and mountain passes of horse and cattle thieves, and other outlaws. This was especially true of the States of the far West. H. H. Bancroft, the historian of Popular Tribunals, wrote in 1887 that "thus far in the history of these Pacific States far more has been done toward righting wrongs and administering justice outside the pale of law than within it." However, the lack of regard for law, fostered by the conditions described, led to a survival of the lynching habit after the necessity for it passed away. In parts of the Southern States, certain of the conditions of the West have prevailed since emanci pation and reconstruction gave the former slaves freedom and temporary political supremacy and increased the friction between the races. The numerous protective societies of whites, 1865-76, culminating in the Ku Klux and White League movement, may be described as an application of lynch law. After reconstruction, with the increase of negro crimes, came an increase of lynchings, due to prejudice, to the fact that for some time after reconstruc tion the governments were weak, especially in the districts where the blacks outnumbered the whites, to the fact that negroes nearly always shield criminals of their own race against the whites, and to the occurrence of the crime of rape by negro men upon white women.
The New York World has collected statistics of lynching since 1885 and some interesting facts may be deduced from these tables. During the 41 years from 1885 to 1926, inclusive, the total number of persons lynched in the United States was 4,250, of whom 3,205 were negroes and 1,045 were whites; the annual number has been gradually decreasing during the last 3o years. The East is almost free from lynchings ; of those in the West, most were white ; of those lynched in the South, the larger numbers were blacks. Lynchings occur mostly during periods of idleness of the lower classes ; in the summer more are lynched for crimes against the person and in the winter, especially in the West, for crimes against property; the principal causes for lynchings in the South are murder and rape; in the West, for murder and offences against property. Lynching decreases and disappears in a region as the population grows denser and civil institutions grow stronger ; as better communications and good police make it harder to commit crime ; and as public sentiment is educated to demand legal rather than illegal and irregular infliction of punishment for even the most horrible of crimes.