The Voice of the Negro (1904) Vol. 1, No. 11. p. 554-559.

Accessed via HathiTrust: https://hdl.handle.net/2027/nyp.33433091039788

Philosophy of Lynching

By L. J. Brown

There is a wilderness more dark

Than groves of fir on Huron's shore,

And in that dreary region,

Hark, How serpents hiss! How monsters roar!

'Tis not among the untrod Isles

Of vast Superior's stormy lake,

Where social comforts never smile

Nor sunbeams pierce the tangled brake.

Nor is it in the deepest shade of

India's tiger haunted wood;

Nor western prairies unsurveyed,

Where crouching panthers lurk for blood.

It is the dark UNCULTURED SOUL,

By education unrefined;

Where all the hateful passions prowl,

The FRIGHTFUL, WILDERNESS of MIND.

⮚⮚⮚⮘⮘⮘

Physical persecution compared with mental persecution is as a black nimbus cloud to the deadly gaseous vapors of a belching volcano.

When a thought is once formulated and promulgated it becomes more formidable than an hundred thousand soldiers. If you would perpetuate a thought, express it in a formula or put it into some material form.

The formulas of the syllogism and the Pyramids are everlasting. It required more than two hundred and fifty years to confute the argument that the Negro had no soul, and hence no harm to enslave him.

A remedy for lynching shall not be given, but a brief statement of the causes of that curse which has disgraced the annals of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, shall be presented. In treating this subject, in all my references to the white or colored races, let me be understood as considering the masses and not the splendid exceptions to be found in both classes.

There are some colored people who are as pure and innocent as it is possible for persons to be of whatever race or environment and there are white people whose very presence is a ray of sunshine of good will and benevolence, and would not do any man wrong whatever his race or wherever he may dwell. Unfortunately there are others in both races.

It is a common fallacy to assign the wrong cause for the observed effects. There are transient causes and permanent causes, efficient and occasional causes; formal and final causes. A final cause is the object for which a thing is done, as the prevention of a crime. A formal cause is that which determines the kind or existence of a thing, as the organized mob. Occasion and transient causes are those which excite the efficient cause. An efficient cause is that from which emanates the force that produces the effect. A spark of fire is an occasional cause which excites the powder to explode. The efficient cause is in the powder and may never be excited.

From time to time various writers at different times have cited the following causes for lynching: (a) Blackness of the colored man; (b) a general craze; (c) the antipathy of the former master to admit the ex-slave to equal rights; (d) the desire of the colored man to hold office and to exercise political rights; (e) the colored man's advancement in wealth, prestige and learning; (f) a deliberate attempt to subjugate the colored man to a servile class; (g) to the tardy administration of the laws and the maladministration of justice.

While all, or some, of these things, may exert an influence more or less potent in producing the effect, they are not the real causes for this horrible exhibition of brutalism and fiendishness witnessed in the present day. There are other causes, which, though transient, are real and exert a more potent force in exciting the efficient cause. Such transient causes are: 1. Newspapers practicing what is termed Yellow Journalism. 2. The inability of the white or colored man to submit to adverse criticism. 3. The fact that in the South nearly every white man of any ability is a rampant office seeker. 4. The inability of the whites to control by reason and the colored man to be controled by reason. The white man reasons with a Winchester and the colored man reasons with a club, and in many cases both are convinced in no other way. These are physical reasoners, and such are all half- civilized people. 5. The greed of the church for prestige and wealth; hence pandering to all kinds of violations of the laws in order to get revenue. 6. The false education of the whites which produces provincialism. 7. The commission of crimes by the colored man.

The real causes for lynching abide not with the colored man alone, but lie deep down in the social ocean of the white man. The causes we see are transient and are brought to the surface by agitation. The real ones, or efficient causes, are natural and sociological rather than racial. The efficient cause for lynching is the mob spirit, or the spirit of persecution, which always existed among uncivilized people, or in proportion to their civilization. The following propositions are the deductions of history:

1. The diminution in the intensity of the mob spirit and the diminution in the atrocity of its manifestations indicate the intellectual and moral advancement from a state of bestial savagery towards a state of refined civilization.
2. The spirit of persecution, or the mob spirit, has its origin morally in the disposition of man to domineer over his fellowman; intellectually in the assumption that his own opinions are infallibly correct.

Instances of the latter occur where men are quick to fight those who differ with them. This spirit did not originate in slavery. But the manner in which the southern white man conducted his State government during the prevalence of slavery did not assist him to eliminate this inherent weakness. Slavery fostered its growth. It came to him as a relic of the savage state. It would have been the height of folly to have attempted to govern the States of the South after the manner of the extreme North, because such would have destroyed the institution of slavery. It was absolutely necessary for every one in the community to think alike or, at least, to appear to do so. Any one who maintained ideas inimical to their cherished institution was driven away either by force or threats.

The people of the South did not accustom themselves to have their ideas challenged by argument or reason. It is apparent that a man trained in such a school of thought would naturally come to think himself, his family, and his neighbors only could be right and that all others should be wrong; they, themselves only, were created by the Almighty to enjoy the benefits of the laws. This by force of position denied the right to all others. This mental attitude was the result of savage tendencies. These traits were inherited from the tribal conditions where such a condition was necessary. In the tribal state the individual was not known. The interest of the tribe alone was considered. No one was allowed to do anything which would endanger the welfare of the tribe. If he did so, he was immediately suppressed. Like the wild animals of the forest, they resorted to physical force to ward off the encroachments or depredation of an enemy. People of undeveloped intellects, like animals, are unable to restrain themselves. Indeed these savage traits in man crop out at times even when he has reached a high degree of civilization and subjected himself to a great many restraints. Today in the Southland, if any one express ideas adversely to the general opinion, he will be suppressed, and by physical force, too, with general approval.

It appears from history that the spirit of persecution returns to a land at regular intervals like an epidemic, or rather plagues society at the end of limited cycles. This seems to be the age for its return. This fiend is abroad in many lands. The disposition to persecute was in vogue when the cavaliers, who settled in the South, came to this country.

At the time they left Europe it was the custom of the nobility to wear arms, while the lower classes were prohibited by severe punishments from wearing the merest semblance of arms. There was a continual lamentation welling up, bewailing the brutalism of the upper classes towards the women and the men of the lower classes. Outrages on the women were frequent and the oppressed people were without redress because their oppressors could not be tried by a jury of any other class than their own, hence went unwhipped of justice. Besides, these higher classes were entitled to exemption from the rigors of the laws which were denied to the peasant classes. Indeed, even the boasted Magna Charta referred only to the dominant element and not to the common people of England. So when these emigrants came to this country their minds were formed on these principles; hence their treatment of the Indian and Negro. These principles control them to this day. The law against carrying concealed weapons is only rigorously enforced against the black man. The administration of the jury system admits only one race in the jury box.

On the other hand, the poorer classes of whites who came to this country were of the lowest criminal elements. They had become outcasts in their home country. They were enemies to society and were prejudiced against all organized administration of justice. They are just that way to the present day. Their chafe and champer under under the restraints of the law. These people constitute what is known as the poor whites of the backwoods and mountains. They feel, and always have felt, that it was a religious duty to get even with society for the hard lot befallen them. The colored man being now the weakest part of the social organization, his vengeance is wreaked upon him. The country being thinly settled in the Southland, they have never been compelled to a rigid observance of the laws. The idea of obeying law from a standpoint of moral duty has never been taught them. Force is all they know.

These are the efficient causes for lynching in this country. The transient causes only excite the elements already existing and ripe for explosion. The powder has all the elements for an explosion before the spark touches it. The explosiveness is not in the spark but in the powder.

In sections of the country where the sav. avage instincts have been refined and civilizing influences have control, the commission of that most odious crime, sometimes charged against the victims of this scourge, will not arouse a lynching bee. The people let the law have sway.

Now let us briefly consider some of the transient causes and then a few statistics as a confutation of the positions assumed by some writers. It is worthy of note that lynchings are usually preceded from twenty- four to forty- eight hours by the compliments, or condonements, of these murderous violations of the law by the yellow journalists who magnify a simple assault into a most brutal act of ravishment. Soon after it is announced by them that the chivalrous act was done quietly and orderly by unknown persons, or the best citizens of the place. How is it they know all these facts and never one of the murderers can be apprehended?

The great church denominations of our country so far from striving to destroy the fiend, actually wink at it. Anything for revenue and prestige. What else but mercenary motives could have moved bishops in some of our great church denomination to condone lynching, or openly endorse it as the most efficacious way to administer law in the Southland? This to the eternal disgrace of religion and the church!

But let me be not misunderstood; much, very much, comes from the fault of the colored man. Sad, be it remembered, to admit it, but it is true that the colored race of this country constitutes one of the criminal classes. The number of criminals are far too many in proportion to our population. There are many, too many instances, where the fiendish acts that are committed, demonstrate the unabated ferocities of their savage ancestors and blanch the cheek of the good of both races. But all this is not our fault. How can we have moral, peaceful, law-abiding people when such examples of howling law-breakers dwell around us?

For the causes above detailed, the people of the Southland are, and were, very intolerant in social matters, in religion, and in politics. If you will observe you will find there are very few different denominations in the South, and there were fewer before the war. It was the disposition of the Southern white man to ostracize and prescribe every one who varied in the least from the trend of his way of thinking. This comes from the plantation government of the slavery days. He did not appeal to reason or the law for the redress of a grievance, but to his strong right arm, to his shot gun, or to that of his neighbors.

The fact that nearly every white man in the South is a violent office-seeker vitiates the whole system of legal administration. It is too much to expect that a candidate for election or re-election should hunt down his constituent for the commission of a crime, nor to hope for a man trained to believe that his class only is entitled to the protection of the law to return a true verdict when trying a lyncher.

That the Southern white man and colored man settle their quarrels by killing their antagonists these figures will clearly show:

From '89 to '94, inclusive, there were 20,555 murders committed; of this rape or outrages gave 28 cases; from '94 to '90, inclusive, 38,512 murders; of this 6 were caused by rape. Thus were committed from '89 to '99; inclusive, 59,067 murders; outrages caused 34 and quarrels 6,246.

Lynchers assign as a reason for committing the most heinous crime of all the ages that it will diminish crime among the colored people; if not that, then no reason at all is given. But this is not true. History and statistics show that where the most crimes are punishable by the death penalty there the most crimes are committed; and in these states where the more crimes are punished by the death penalty there the more murders are committed and the more lynchings. In the states where no crime is punished with death there occur no murders and lynchings. The following statistics show the number of crimes in each of the Southern States punished with the death penalty, and the number of legal executions and lynchings from '90 to '95, inclusive:

It is computed that the Negroes constitute 65 per cent of the persons lynched, although they form only one-twelfth of the population of the country, i.e., in ten years the Negroes furnished 1,564 victims to lynch law. Of the 431 lynchings in '91 and '92, 369 were in the South and 62 were in the North. During '99 in twenty-six states there were legal executions and in twenty-five there none at all. In '99 there were 100 persons legally executed in the South and 31 in the North; of these ,53 were whites and 72 blacks and 1 Indian. The crimes for which they were executed were: Murder, 11; rape, 17; highway robbery, 1. Rape constituted about one-eighth of the offenses.

From '92 to '99, inclusive, there were 878 legal executions, and from '85 to '99 there were 2,406 lynchings. In '99 there were 107 lynched; 103 of these were in the South and 4 in the North; of them, 84 were colored and 23 whites. The causes for which they were lynched: Rape, 11; rape and murder, 1, alleged rape, 6; arson and murder, 1; murder, 41; arson, 6; complicity in murder, 11; highway robbery, 1; suspected arson, 1; race prejudice, 5; inflammatory language, 1; aiding a criminal to escape, 3; mistaken identity, 1; unknown offense, 4; and no offense, 1. Still persons speak of rape being the principal cause for lynching. Taking these statistics, it is shown that rapings form about one-ninth of the offenses causing lynchings from '85 to '99. So dropping fractions this will give us 267 persons lynched in fourteen years for rape and alleged rape. This is about 11 per cent. of the persons falling victims to this nullification of the laws.

Rhode Island, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado and Ohio have abolished the death penalty. Not many years ago England punished 129 crimes with death. Now there is only one visited with this penalty. A writer in the American Law Review states that there are more crimes committed in one year in one county of an American state than in all England, or any one of the continental countries.

It does not avail to point out a sporadic case of lynching in the North as an excuse for the fiendishness of the South.

Lamentable as it may be, it is true, that our beautiful Southland, where the birds sing throughout the year, where the flowers are ever in bloom, where the Ice King seldom stalks his way and where the forests never die but fall into a sombre sleep, is crime ridden, and will not be relieved until the white man and the black man have been educated and cultured out of the savage instincts inherited from the tribal conditions.

Writers tell us that the people of ancient days would betake themselves to the hills, where they reveled in a drunken carousal and performed the orgies of devotion to the licentious Bacchus. In western Asia we find the people bowing in an attitude of supplication before the god Moloch, into whose fire- heated arms they cast their crying babes. We denounce such as the ravings of a dark and gloomy paganism. In the nineteenth century every schoolboy was shown the horrid picture of the South Sea Islanders dancing about their bound victims at the burning stake with wild joy in anticipation of a feast on human flesh. It was written that the African performed similar rites. But the Maori and the African have abandoned their cannibalism. What have we in the western hemisphere, where it is said the acme of civilization exists, and where the summum bonum of all the ages has been developed? In the West Indies we find the Negro Voodooist dancing and crooning around the blazing faggots, and as he passes he casts into the flames venomous serpents to ward off the power of some dread enemy. In the far west we have the Indian prancing and howling in wild fury around a great bonfire. Coiled about the Indian's body we see poisonous snakes which ever and anon he casts into the flames. In the Southland we have the white savage yelling and howling in fiendish delight around a human holocaust, the victim of an insane idea. As the flames mount higher his enthusiasm increases.

When the Indian's fire subsides, we find find him groping in the ashes to discover the bones of the serpents to wear as a talisman to protect him from the dangers of life. When the flames around the human sacrifice have burned down, and only the smouldering remains are there, we find the white savage fighting, screaming and struggling to get a single bone of a burned Negro which he will carry home and string around his baby's little neck as an amulet to ward off the great black monster which he imagines is looming in the sky.

What a picture for the future historian to contemplate! All the horrors of the Christian persecutions, the slaughter of the Covenanters of Scotland, or the Spanish Inquisitions pale before such exhibitions of brutalism and savagery in a civilized nation. Will the South forever stand for this awful condition of things? Let us hope and work and pray to the end that there is in store in the future a higher order of things than now prevail.