The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South / In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White Race

CHAPTER II
LYNCHING DURING THE CIVIL WAR AND THE CARPET-BAG RULE

Such a case was, no doubt, exceptional. In one way or another, however, the abolitionists produced more or less dissatisfaction among the slaves and were almost wholly responsible for the escape to the North of something like an average of 2,000 a year. The Negroes did not always find conditions in the North so favorable as they had been led to suppose. As a consequence it did not infrequently happen that a “runaway” Negro would become dissatisfied and return of his own free will to his master in the South.

During the Civil War those slaves who for any reason had become dissatisfied with their condition embraced the first opportunity to gather in the wake of the Union army,—mainly, no doubt, to shun work.

While this was true as an exception, the great mass of the slaves remained quietly at work on the plantations. Thus, instead of creating antagonism between the two races, the War served rather to foster and cement a good feeling between them; indeed, throughout its darkest days they lived harmoniously side by side. Elizabeth Collins, an Englishwoman, who was in South Carolina the greater part of the War, says:

Indeed, an examination of several Southern newspapers and some books of travel[31:2] revealed but two possible cases of lynching of Negroes in the South during the War: A Mr. Harris, Uchee, Alabama, was murdered by six of his Negroes, whereupon:

The other case was in Mississippi: Some Negroes were hung, seemingly, for trying to get on a steamboat in order to escape from slavery.[31:4] The Liberator[31:5] mentions two instances of Negroes being lynched in New York in 1863: A negro in jail at Newburg, on suspicion of rape, was taken out by a mob “who pounded him almost to death and then hung him on a tree until he was finished.” Two were also lynched in the City of New York, one of whom, it seems, was roasted alive.

In no place was there any mention of any Negroes being lynched for rape in the South during the War. Indeed, it is often said that during the Civil War when the white men were nearly all away from home, leaving the white women almost at the mercy of the slaves, no Negro was guilty of a criminal outrage against them.[32:6] It may be true. Viewed in the light of the sporadic occurrence of the crime under the restraining influence of slavery before the War, and of its quite frequent occurrence sometime after, it is both remarkable and suggestive.

It may truly be regarded as evidence not only of the generally fair treatment that, according to unprejudiced travelers, they were receiving in slavery, as well as a tribute to their fidelity, but it also makes it obvious that the Negro and the Southern white man might have continued in harmony mutually advantageous after the War, had both been free from outside influences.

Almost immediately after the War, however, the South began to “swarm” with harebrained preachers and teachers from the North, ostensibly to elevate the Negro; as a rule, though, they served no better purpose than to aid in setting the Negro against his former master. For, it seems, they cared not what became of the white man so they secured the “salvation” of the Negro, entirely ignoring that saying of Scripture which is to the effect that those who fail to serve first their own house or people have denied the faith and are worse than infidels.[33:7]

Such a condition of affairs was promoted by Congress, who, at about the close of the War established the so-called “Freedmen’s Bureau,” and shortly after passed the Civil Rights bill, both of which tended to cause friction between the two races. However, as compared with that of a few years later, the trouble does not appear to have been very serious notwithstanding exaggerated accounts which were reported to Northern papers. In most parts of the South and at most times for something like two years after the War, there was comparative quiet and safety.

The crimes of the Negroes during these years were for the most part of a trifling kind,—petty thievery and robbery. However, it is true they committed crimes of a very serious nature, also. Notwithstanding, the law was generally allowed to have its way. Harriett Martineau observes in one of her books that nothing struck her more than the patience of the slave-owners of the South with their slaves. Even during the first years after the War a patient and even indulgent spirit was often manifested by the leading whites toward the Negroes as to their shortcomings and sometimes it extended to their serious crimes.

For instance, in 1866, near Rome, Georgia, a whole family consisting of a man, wife, and two daughters, were murdered, and one of the women, ravished. The newspaper account ends with:[34:8]

For such a crime now, a Negro would likely be burned alive. The same paper quotes the following from The Raleigh Progress:[34:9]

Would it now be possible for any one to take such a tolerant, if not even good-natured,—view of such an affair?

In order to make a comparison I have selected for study, here, two three-year periods: First, 1866-7-8, including the year before and year after the passing of the Reconstruction Act of 1867 for the South; second, 1873-4-5, when the carpet-bag rule, which resulted from the Reconstruction policy of Congress, was in full operation. Although the number of lynchings during the first and second periods are in striking contrast, even this but faintly indicates the great change from the comparative tranquillity of the first (as illustrated by newspapers)[35:10] to the confusion, chaos, and crime of the second.

In 1866, one Negro was lynched in the South for attempted rape, another was sentenced to death for rape, and one was sentenced to the penitentiary for a like crime. Also, near Smithfield, Ohio, Negroes committed outrages on two girls. In Kentucky three white men were lynched for murder, and three more were put to death by a band of regulators. No doubt Kentucky was influenced in such matters by the example of the West.

The following occurred in 1867: one Negro lynched in Missouri by Germans for the murder of a German; a Negro given sixty lashes in Delaware for assaulting two white women; three Negroes legally hanged at Charleston, S. C., for outrage. In the North, two or more Negro soldiers, deserters, lynched in Kansas for the rape of a white woman; four white men lynched in Indiana for murder and robbery; thirty men hanged in three Kansas counties by Vigilantes during the winter and spring.

For 1868: Two Negroes who confessed to the horrible murder of a white family in Mississippi were taken from a sheriff by a band of Negroes and burned;[36:11] one Negro was lynched in Kentucky for rape and another in Maryland for attempted rape; two Negroes, in jail for murder, lynched in Mississippi after boasting that the Loyal League would prevent their execution, even if convicted; a man lynched in Tennessee after he had confessed to the murder of three men at different times. In North Carolina over thirty Negro desperadoes, who confessed to several murders and robberies, were captured and put in jail. Ten Adam’s Express robbers were lynched in Indiana; two men lynched for murder in Illinois and one for stealing horses in Colorado.[37:12]

In 1873, however, six Negroes were lynched in the South for rape; three were legally executed for the same crime; one, condemned to be hung, and three awaiting trial—in all, thirteen Negroes charged with rape. In Louisiana, three Negroes were lynched in the presence of 1,000 people for an atrocious murder; four men were also lynched in Louisiana for cattle-stealing, and another in the same State for arson. Also, one white man was lynched in Tennessee by fifteen Negroes. Two Negroes were legally hanged for murder,—one in Kentucky, the other in Virginia. In the North: One white man was lynched in Ohio for rape; a Negro and a white man were lynched in Nebraska for robbery, also a Negro for murder; two men were lynched in Montana for murder and two in Kansas for supposed murder.

During the year 1874, eleven Negroes and one white man were lynched in the South for rape, while two Negroes were legally executed for the crime. In two instances,—one in Arkansas, the other in Missouri,—both Negroes and whites took part in lynching Negroes. Three Negroes were also lynched in the South for murder and two for riot; and four Negroes in Tennessee for threatening to kill some whites and to sack and burn a town. In addition, ten white men were lynched, four in Arkansas and one in Missouri for horse-stealing, the others in the States of the Southwest for scandalous murders. In the North, two Negroes were lynched for murder, and two Negroes in Pennsylvania and one white man in Kansas for rape. In the North, also, seven white men, one Mexican and one Chinaman were lynched for murder, and one white man for horse-stealing and another for thievery.

In 1875, the last year of the second period,—nine Negroes were lynched in the South for rape and four for attempted rape; also, one Negro guilty of rape, and another who attempted rape, escaped,—in all, fifteen rape cases.[38:13] One man and two Negroes were lynched for murder. Also one Negro was legally executed for rape, eleven for murder, and one case cause not given. In the North, one Negro was lynched, cause not given, and one Negro guilty of rape, escaped. Three men, also, were lynched for murder, one for arson, and one in New York for robbery.

By comparing the two three-year periods it will be found that during 1866-8 there were seven cases of rape or attempted rape by Negroes in the South. In three instances they were lynched and in four, the law was allowed to take its course. While for 1873-5, twenty-six Negroes were lynched for rape, and four for attempted rape. Six Negroes were legally executed for rape, one was under sentence of death for the crime, three were awaiting trial and two escaped—in all forty-two Negroes in the South were charged with rape during the second period. This was just six times as many as for the first period. Further, ten times the number of Negroes were lynched for rape in the South during 1873-5 as during 1866-8, or but 43- per cent of those charged with the crime during the first period as against 73+ per cent for the second.

That this wonderful change was due almost wholly to misgovernment at Washington, no one can doubt. Surely, History was never obliged to record a more colossal blunder in statesmanship than that of Congressional Reconstruction. Nor is it likely that any civilized people were ever before called upon to endure a system of misrule and legalized plunder equal to that which such legislation, maybe unwittingly, paved the way for inaugurating at the South.

The confusion, turmoil, and strife that it created is only too well known. Not only did it result in a cleavage of the social structure, setting one part against the other, but it also caused as much or more financial damage to the South than the War itself. For instance, four and one-half years of Reconstruction, it is said, cost the State of Louisiana alone over $106,000,000; while the assessed valuation of property in New Orleans dropped from $147,000,000 to $88,500,000 during eight years of carpet-bag rule.

It was made easy for political-fortune hunters from the North, with little concern for the good of either the whites or the blacks of the South, to gain position and power through cultivating the friendship of the ignorant, credulous, newly enfranchised Negroes. This they assiduously did from the start. At the same time they left nothing undone which might create and foster among the Negroes a feeling of ill will against and distrust of the Southern whites. If their former masters came into power, the Negroes were sometimes told, they would be reduced to slavery. The Negroes’ love of display was appealed to by encouraging them to form secret societies, to make public parades, and hold celebrations which tended to create a race consciousness and race solidarity. This, of course, was for the purpose of helping the carpet-baggers in perpetuating their power. If one considers the conditions, what else could be expected but riots and lynchings?

If the control of the Negroes in slavery times, with all the advantages to such end embodied in the institution of slavery, had often been one of anxiety to the South, how fearful must have been the conditions now that they were not only free from such control but enfranchised and taught by their new friends to be self-assertive, even if not sometimes encouraged in acts of violence against the Southern white people? It does, indeed, seem that a great part of the Negroes almost ran wild—for they were free, but did not understand how to use their freedom. So, lazy, worthless, robbing, murdering gangs of them went prowling through the South. For it is as natural for the Negro to sit in idleness, or shoot crap, to go on marauding expeditions or connive at insurrections, as it is for the white man to establish courts, collect libraries, and found schools.

Can History prove that the Negro, during his thousands of years of contact with superior races, has ever yet risen to the dignity of stable and progressive self-government? Even Liberia, with all the help that has been given her, is gradually sinking to the level of the surrounding barbarism. And what of San Domingo? Indeed, everywhere the tendency of the pure Negro is to fall when the white man’s props are removed.

To return: If there ever was a time when the best elements in a society were justified in taking the law into their own hands, that time was during carpet-bag rule. The wonder now is that such a people as those of the South should have acted with even the moderation that appears.

That some of the carpet-bag governments were absolutely corrupt goes without saying. “Get all you can in any way you can” seemed to be the idea. Justice was for sale. In some instances, it is said, the criminal elements knew that any one could commit crime and escape punishment for a money consideration. A few examples may be of interest:[42:14] A man who was accused of outrageously murdering a woman, although caught and imprisoned, was released, it is said, without even a trial, for $800. Moreover, a Negro who had been sentenced by a court to the penitentiary was released and returned home on the same train as the sheriff who took him there. Indeed, the accusation was made that a certain carpet-bag governor, in order to help the Republican Party, connived at the killing of a number of Negroes in such a way that the blame might fall on the Southern whites. At one place,[43:15] a court in passing judgment on a convicted Negro rapist merely sent him to the penitentiary, which so enraged the people of the community that they took him from jail and hanged him near the place of his crime.

In order that one may the better understand the reason for the development of the lynching spirit in the South the following quotations are given:

However, in some States,—for instance, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware,—where the Southern whites had control, order was preserved and comparative quiet prevailed, while the lynching of Negroes was sporadic, not only during this early period, but even until the present. Discord and collisions between the two races have been almost unknown.

It is doubtful if any greater mistake was made in dealing with the South after the War than in disfranchising the leading Southern whites and granting the Negro suffrage. The Negro might have been given the ballot gradually as he proved himself fitted for it without any detriment. But considering the race as a whole—it may be putting it too mild—it may be too great a compliment to the Negro,—too disparaging to the intelligence of the average white boy,—to say that the Negroes, with some exceptions, at that time were no more fit for the ballot than seven-year-old boys. Nor was it any more reasonable to expect them to act the part of men in using it, or in political affairs, than to expect it from seven-year-old boys. They were, and to a large extent are yet, a race in its childhood.

President Lincoln, however, seems to have understood better than any one else of his party what was for the best interest of both races: That the Negroes, at least, for a while, with proper guarantees and restrictions, should be in a position of tutelage or apprenticeship to the whites. Indeed, there is little doubt that he expected the Southern States to make some such temporary arrangements, for in a proclamation, December 8, 1863, in reference to the reëstablishment of State governments by several States of the farther South, he says:

But unfortunately for both races in the South, Lincoln was assassinated.

FOOTNOTES: