LYNCHING

During these years lynching has become a national institution and constitutes the most flagrant and, comprehensive violation of civil processes in the United States. The Negro has suffered and still suffers at the hands of lawless mobs which regard themselves as the agents of an extra-legal popular will. Back of the failure to punish lynching is an idea of “popular justice.” Says J.D. Cutler in his Lynch Law:

“In the course of this investigation into the history of lynching, it has become evident that there is usually more or less of public approval, or supposed favorable public sentiment, behind a lynching. Indeed, it is not too much to say that popular justification is the sine qua non of lynching. It is this fact that distinguishes lynching from insurrection and open warfare. A lynching may be defined as an illegal and summary execution at the hands of a mob or a number of persons, who have in some degree the public opinion of the community back of them….

In the last analysis lynch-law in this country is without any justification whatsoever. In a government founded on the idea that the ultimate power and authority shall rest with the people, and in which sufficient facility has been given to the expression of the collective will of the people so that the acts of the government, the formulation of the law, and the administration of justice ought to adequately represent this collective will, there is no tenable ground on which to vindicate the practicing of punishing criminals other than by the regularly constituted courts.”²⁶

The alleged justifications for lynching need no discussion, the rights to trial and legal punishment are basic no matter what the offense. There is a growing agreement that action by the Federal government alone will work effectively to end lynchings. Cutler, however, puts more weight on public sentiment. He says: