Mob law

“ Not a breeze comes to us from the late rebellious states that is not tainted and freighted with Negro blood. In its thirst for blood and its rage for vengeance, the mob has blindly, boldly and defiantly supplanted sheriffs, constables and police. It has assumed all the functions of civil authority. It laughs at legal processes, courts and juries, and its red-handed murderers range abroad unchecked and unchallenged by law or by public opinion. If the mob is in pursuit of Negroes who happen to be accused of crime, innocent or guilty, prison walls and iron bars afford no protection. ”

“ A mob is not composed of men who have it in their hearts to respect the rights of the victim of their fury.
This is the cause of so many innocent, inoffensive Negro men, women and children perishing at the hands of mobs. Mob violence leads to the utter disregard for law and order, and increases crime, making criminals of "some of the best citizens." ”

“ The spirit of the mob is in deadly antagonism to all constituted authority. Unless curbed it will sap the foundation of civilized society. Lynching a human creature is no less murder when the act of a mob than when that of a single individual. There is no safety to society but in an aroused public sentiment that will hold each participant amenable to the law for the consequences of the crime he either perpetrates or abets. This is the land of liberty, "of the largest liberty," but let it never be forgotten that it is liberty regulated by law. ”

“ The sovereign power—the tribunal of ultimate jurisdiction—is a mob. If the mob is large enough (it need not be very large) , even if composed of vicious tramps, it may do as it will. It may destroy property and life. It may without proof of guilt inflict upon individuals torments unthinkable by fire and flaying, mutilations that are nameless. It may call men, women and children from their beds and beat them to death with cudgels. In the light of day it may assail the very strongholds of law in the heart of a populous city, and assassinate prisoners of whose guilt it knows nothing. ”

“ Mob law feeds largely upon the belief that even the worst criminals stand in little danger of punishment, but that “by hook or by crook”—mostly “crook”—especially if they or their friends can command means to hire lawyers and invoke the dilatory machinery of the courts, they are almost certain to escape. Whatever, therefore, tends to render the punishment of crime more speedy and certain is a direct discouragement to these sudden and savage outbursts of popular indignation against crime. ”

“ Open treason was talked, and many of the addresses to the Governor, composed by Adams, were models of grave and studied insolence. The rough population which abounded about the wharves and shipyards grew riotous, and, with the usual indiscrimination of mobs, was not slow to lift its hands against even the best friends of the people. "Mob law is a crime, and those who engage in mobs are criminals." This is a fundamental axiom of orderly government that cannot be denied. ”

“ Over a hundred murders had occurred in a few months and not a single capital punishment had followed. [588]
Feeling that this insecurity of life and property was intolerable, and fearing that it would draw down the perils and uncertainties of mob law, a party of prominent citizens, all above suspicion of self-interest, organized a defensive league against the allied rabble. They determined to take the law into their own hands, and to administer it with equal and exact justice, with swiftness and finality. ”

“ Apart from policemen, magistrates, and the soldiers who in the last resort must be called out to enforce the decrees of the community, it might appear that law could not exist. And certainly it is hard to admit that what is known as mob-law is any law at all. For historical purposes, however, we must be prepared to use the expression "law" rather widely. We must be ready to say that there is law wherever there is punishment on the part of a human society, whether acting in the mass, or through its representatives. ”

“ Once permit the shackles of law and order to be cast off, and men, white or black, Christian or pagan, revert to primordial savagery. There is no such thing as an orderly mob.
Crime had been committed by Negroes, but this mob made no attempt to find the criminals: it expressed its blind, unreasoning, uncontrolled race hatred by attacking every man, woman, or boy it saw who had a black face. A lame boot-black, an inoffensive, industrious Negro boy, at that moment actually at work shining a man’s shoes, was dragged out and cuffed, kicked and beaten to death in the street. ”

“ Yet wiser men have seen defiance of law fail to stop crime, have seen mobs act upon suspicions afterward proved groundless, have seen mob action widely extended, and have seen the growth of a spirit of lawlessness. Where one mob has had its way, another is always more easily aroused, and soon the administration of the law becomes a farce. ”

“ Needless to say, Fielding makes out an excellent case against the toleration of mob law:--"When by our excellent Constitution the greatest Subject, no not even the King himself, can, without a lawful Trial and Conviction divest the meanest Man of his Property, deprive him of his Liberty, or attack him in his Person; shall we suffer a licentious Rabble to be Accuser, Judge, Jury, and Executioner; to inflict corporal Punishment, break open Men's Doors, plunder their Houses, and burn their Goods?" ”

“ And not only so; the innocent, those who have ever set their faces against violations of law in every shape, alike with the guilty fall victims to the ravages of mob law; and thus it goes on, step by step, till all the walls erected for the defence of the persons and property of individuals are trodden down and disregarded. ”

“ Mob law is the most forcible expression of an abnormal public opinion; it shows that society is rotten to the core. ”

“ Years of inaction and treachery on the part of the Republican and Democratic parties have resulted in the present reign of mob law, and we demand that every citizen be protected in the right of trial by constitutional tribunals. ”

“ Thoughtful, sober people will not entrust power to men who sanction mob law, and who rise to high honor by conniving at or participating in assassination and murder. They have too much self-respect to do it. ”

“ The newspaper reports [Pg 206] are fond of describing lynching mobs as “made up of the foremost citizens of the town.” In few cases that I know of, either South or North, except in back country neighbourhoods, has a mob been made up of what may be called the best citizens; but the best citizens have often stood afar off “decrying the mob”—as a Springfield man told me—and letting it go on. A mob is the method by which good citizens turn over the law and the government to the criminal or irresponsible classes. ”

“ Blinded by its own fury, it is moved by impulses utterly unfavourable to a clear perception of facts and the ability to make an impartial statement of the simple truth. At the outset, I challenge the credibility of the mob, and as the mob is the main witness in the case against the Negro I appeal from the judgment of the mob to the judgment of law-abiding men, in support of my challenge. I lay special emphasis on the fact that it is the mob and the mob only that the country has recognised and accepted as its accredited witness against the Negro. ”

“ The remedies suggested here for lawlessness and contempt for the law, may be applied with equal benefit where mob spirit is rampant. The mobist, to coin a phrase, that starts out to do murder upon a defenceless prisoner, is on a par with the bushwhacker—even inferior to him in courage. For mobs are courageous only through mass numbers; or when under strong and aggressive leadership. Mobs have been known to slink away ignominiously when confronted by one or two loyal citizens. ”

“ It was done by some of the citizens, and those who know will not tell.
S.S. GLOVER, Sheriff
Thus acts the mob with the victim of its fury, conscious that it will never be called to an account. Not only is this true, but the moral support of those who are chosen by the people to execute the law, is frequently given to the support of lawlessness and mob violence. The press and even the pulpit, in the main either by silence or open apology, have condoned and encouraged this state of anarchy. ”

“ The ringleaders of the mob were at no time disguised. Men were chased, beaten and killed by white brutes, who boasted of their crimes, and the murderers still walk the streets of New Orleans, well known and absolutely exempt from prosecution. Not only were they exempt from prosecution by the police while the town was in the hands of the mob, but even now that law and order is supposed to resume control, these men, well known, are not now, nor ever will be, called to account for the unspeakable brutalities of that terrible week. ”

“ The notoriety of Springfield's evil resorts has been widespread.
A mob which murders, burns and loots, is a highly undesirable substitute even for a complacent city administration. It is a logical result, however, of long temporizing with vice and harboring of the vicious. When a mob begins to shoot and hang, to destroy and pillage, there is instant recognition on the part of responsible persons of the beauty of law enforcement and of general orderliness. ”

“ We of course agree that if a trial is in fact dominated by a mob, so that the jury is intimidated and the trial judge yields, and so that there is an actual interference with the course from due process of law in the proper sense of that term. And if the State, supplying no corrective process, carries into execution a judgment of death or imprisonment based upon a verdict thus produced by mob domination, the State deprives the accused of his life of liberty without due process of law. ”

“ In many localities a spirit of lawlessness has asserted itself in its most hideous form. The rule of the mob has at times usurped that of the law. Outrages have been perpetrated in the name of summary justice, appalling to all thoughtful men. It need hardly be said that all this is in total disregard of individual rights, and utterly subversive of all lawful authority.
By the solemn adjudication of courts, and under the safeguards of law, the fact of guilt is to be established, and the guilty punished. ”

“ In such a case the criminal is not only unjustly dealt with, for both the moral and civil laws are violated, but a great sin is committed against society, the moral sensibilities are blunted and the crime intended to be suppressed is given new impetus.
Mob violence is the violation of every penal law. The victim has no show whatever. ”

“ THE SOUTH IS A GOOD PLACE FOR THE NEGRO TO LIVE, provided, however, the better class of citizens will rise up and demand that lynchings and mobs shall cease, and that the officers of the law shall do their duty without prejudice. The only way to suppress mob violence is to make punishment for the leaders in it, sure and certain. The reason we have mobs is because the leaders of them know they will not be punished. ”

“ All human history verifies these aphorisms; and that the perpetrators and silent abettors of this barbarism have sowed to the winds a dire penalty, already being reaped, is evidenced by disregard of race or color of the victim when mob law is in the ascendant. ”

“ A mob attack is nothing but a manifestation of sheer lawlessness."
"And you're keen for the dear law, of course," said Johnny with sarcasm.
"There is a difference between mere laws and the law. There is a time—either here or coming soon—when laws may be broken that justice may be done. But no popular movement will succeed unless it has behind it the solemn, essential human law. Good-night."
LIV On this same afternoon of King's assassination Nan Keith, was expecting Sansome in for tea. Afternoon tea was then an exotic institution, practically unknown in California society. ”

“ If a mob defies the law, he will stand the stones until one has knocked him out of the ranks. In short, he is a complete protector and servitor of laws, of mothers, daughters, wives, and property,—and, at the end of all, receiving his pittance with a "Good luck to those who live better and get more." ”

“ They allow the mob to run riot. It was a mob that smashed Chief Justice Hutchinson’s windows. Your gatherings under the Liberty Tree are in reality nothing but mobs; you have no legal authority for assembling. It was a mob that assaulted the king’s troops on the 5th of [Pg 242] March; a mob threw the tea into the harbor, and I strongly suspect that Tom Brandon had a hand in that iniquity. The king stands for law and order. ”

“ When a man stands before the country convicted, in due course of law, of a wilful and deliberate murder, and when public sentiment is so strong against him, that nothing but the fear or love of the powers that be, protects the culprit from a summary execution by mob-violence ”

“ The militia were called out, and fired into the rioters. Many persons were killed and wounded before order could be restored. The press of the country, while regretting the breach of the peace and the loss of life, generally insist upon the moral that governments must not look for people to respect the law in face of corruption in high places and notorious compromises with thieves and murderers. “The objective point of the mob,” wrote the special correspondent of the “New York Sun,” “was the jail, and the murderers it contained, whom they meant to hang. ”