The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White RaceCollins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
History
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
Collins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
African Americans; Lynching; Southern States -- Race relations
“Secondly, admitting that in the event of a trial by a jury
he shall be hanged—a highly probable result—yet would his
execution be as illegal as though done by a band of wronged
citizens; for must not a juror be a peer, and with a mind free
of bias, and where can a man be found competent to try this
case? Who can be found of his level, and who that has heard
has not already convicted him in his mind? At best, that which
would be done under the semblance of law would be a _more sham_
by force of all the circumstances connected with this horrible
deed, and if under the law the penalty is death, and we know
the deed was committed by him—we claim that there is no moral
difference in the means of destroying him, and we act upon this
conviction.
“Thirdly, we are not willing that the victim shall be dragged
into court to tell over and over again the story of her
terrible wrongs, or that her name shall be entered upon the
records of our criminal jurisprudence for future reference.”
Further comment on this lynching is unnecessary—unless indirectly: the
Negro, child of Africa, but lately removed from the jungle, because of
the necessity of the habitat of his origin, has had developed in him
by nature, possibly, stronger sexual passion than is to be found in
any other race.[58:5] But he is infinitely lacking in the high mental,
moral, and emotional qualities that are especially characteristic of
the Anglo-Saxon, and it is a grievous mistake to attribute such high
qualities to him. When proper restraint is removed from the Negro he
gets beyond bounds. The Anglo-Saxon, indeed, or members of that race,
has a way of meeting extraordinary conditions with extraordinary
means—hence lynching in order to hold in check the Negro in the South.
Indeed, a country occupied by two races so widely apart in origin,
characteristics, and development as the whites and the Negroes of the
Southern States—one race of the highest mental endowments and culture,
the other of the lowest—one having a civilization that reaches back
hundreds, if not thousands, of years, the other in the early dawn of
civilization—might reasonably have two codes of law suited, as nearly
as possible, to each race, respectively.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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