Any one who would deal intelligently with the questions presenting themselves in the South to-day must recognize the existence of a racial prejudice. In some respects it is an unreasoning prejudice, a prejudice in the extreme sense of the word, but there is also a real and substantial basis for such racial antipathy, and it is a feeling which is not likely to disappear for generations to come. It must be taken into account in the consideration of all remedies proposed for existing evils in the South. It is something that cannot be removed by legislative enactments; neither can it be destroyed by constant crying out against it. While it does not justify the lynching of negroes, it does furnish a standpoint from which justification is easy, and it is a fact which makes the prevention of such lynchings extremely difficult, particularly where brutal crimes are committed upon whites by negroes. The commonest justification for lynching negroes in recent years, the plausibility of which rests very largely on race prejudice, is the crime of rape as directed against white women. According to Tillinghast this crime has come into existence since the Civil War, and its perpetrators are overcome in many cases by primitive passions which master the criminal’s whole being, a great fear being present also which impels to murder.[242] Strictly speaking, this crime has not come into existence since the Civil War. It is not a new crime to the negro. It has merely increased and become more common along with the general increase in criminality manifest in the negro race since emancipation.[243] In colonial times laws were in force in a number of the colonies providing for the punishment of rape committed by negroes on white women, and there were numerous instances of the perpetration of this crime.[244]