It thus appears that the summary and extra-legal methods of punishment adopted during colonial times, and the summary practices of the time of the Revolution, were carried by the emigrants from the original colonies as they pushed the line of the frontier further and further to the westward. Frequent occasion was found on the frontier for the use of such methods and practices to curb the activity of the lawless and the vicious. When the legislature of Virginia authoritatively declared that circumstances may arise under which measures, though not strictly warranted by law, are justifiable from the imminence of the danger, it gave expression to a principle which found ready acceptance among the early settlers exposed to the dangers and vicissitudes of frontier life. Though the statement of the principle by the legislature of Virginia may not have been known, and probably was not known, to very many of those who took an active part in the subsequent history of lynch-law, nevertheless the principle itself was a matter of common knowledge, for it was in the air, as it were, and it was repeatedly embodied in action. In reality, the subsequent history of lynch-law is but the working out of this principle under varying conditions. CHAPTER IV LYNCH-LAW 1830–1860 With the exception of the summary practices characteristic of Revolutionary times, the lynch-law procedure that prevailed prior to 1830 was largely of the frontier type. Even in Revolutionary times, however, when war and political controversies had brought about a state of social disruption leading to the adoption of lynch-law procedure in well settled communities, many of the instances of such procedure might properly be classified under the frontier type. In remote parts of many of the colonies the civil regulations had never been sufficiently established to insure the punishment of public offenders, and recourse was had to summary and extra-legal methods on the ground that there was a lack of courts and other requisites for legal procedure. The Regulation movement in the Carolinas, though stimulated by political dissension, had its basis and origin in frontier conditions; and it is obvious that lynch-law operated under frontier conditions in the rough-and-ready methods of administering justice which were adopted by the pioneers who moved westward over the Alleghanies into the valley of the Mississippi. Before about the year 1830, then, lynch-law was confined almost entirely to the border settlements, and was generally excused and justified on the ground of necessity. It was not regarded as a serious menace to law and order. It was adopted merely as a temporary expedient which was expected to fall into disuse when the civil government and the judiciary became firmly established.