The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 | Page 3

of the present day like procedure. It is true,
however, that there are very few lynchings in which these formulas
have not been unconsciously followed. There must be a hue and cry
and pursuit along the trail. The murderer must be immediately pursued.
The person against whom the crime is committed or his next of kin
must raise an immediate outcry, and they and the neighbors must
proceed at once in pursuit. If they caught the criminal within a
reasonable distance or within a reasonable time, they then were
endowed by primitive law with the right to execute justice upon him
themselves. Commonly the criminal was hanged (even for theft) when
caught in the act, but barbarous punishments were not uncommon. That
was legal procedure, provided the cry was raised, the pursuit
undertaken, and the criminal caught within a reasonable number of
hours or days as the case might be. The mob had the right to execute
the law, and it is not often that lynchings take place long periods after
the commission of the crime. Such for many centuries was the law in
Europe for whites. Self-help applied in particular to men of different
tribes or communities who were not of the same blood kin.
If self-help applied under certain conditions within the blood kin as it

unquestionably did, that is to say, within the law, it applied with greater
force to all classes and offenders who were outside the blood kin and
were outside the law. If a stranger or an alien came within the
community bounds and did not sound his horn, community law
sanctioned his instant killing by anyone who met him. Men could not
peaceably enter the precincts of the German tribes as late as the year
500 or 600 A.D. without being liable to instant death unless they
complied with certain definite formularies. Until within five hundred
years, the stranger was practically without rights in any country but his
own, and might be dealt with violently by individuals or bodies of
citizens. One has but to remember the tortures visited upon the Jews in
all European countries with impunity to realize the truth of the doctrine
of self-help when applied to strangers. There was literally no law to
govern the situation. The courts did not deal with it, no penalties were
provided for the restraining of individuals or of the community at large,
dealing with strangers until a relatively recent time.
Is it not true that the difference in blood between the Negro and the
white man has caused a survival of this notion of self-help, today
illogical, unreasonable, absurd, but powerful none the less despite its
technical infraction of the law of the land? Is not the lynching of a
Negro or of a white man simply the old primitive self-help with the hue
and cry and the execution of the victim when caught by the mob or by
the sheriff's posse? There is perhaps no field of speculation so
fascinating as this of the survival of bygone customs, traditions, and
notions, in present society. At the same time he will be a poor and
uncritical student who will not recognize the ease of erecting vast
structures upon slender foundations. My purpose in this article is not to
allege the necessary truth of this proposition, but, if possible, to
stimulate along different lines than has been common the researches of
those who are interested in the psychological attitude of the white man
toward the Negro.
There will be no doubt those who will exclaim that if I am right in this
analysis of the problem--indeed, if there be any reasonable modicum of
truth in what I say--then the solution of the problem will be difficult in
the extreme. The whole method of attack upon it will be altered. A long

educational campaign will become the main feature, intended to expose
the true basis of the white man's denial of real equality to the Negro
race. It will look like a battle too long to be waged with courage
because the victory will be far in the future. I do not agree. The attack,
if properly directed, and vigorously followed up, will, like the assault
of the woman suffragists upon equally ancient instinctive promptings,
be unexpectedly successful. The walls of the fortress are thin and the
defenders the wraiths of a dim past.
ROLAND G. USHER.

LINCOLN'S PLAN FOR COLONIZING THE EMANCIPATED
NEGROES[1]
The colonization of the emancipated slaves had been one of the
remedies for the difficulties created by the presence of freedmen in the
midst of slave conditions. The American Colonization Society was
founded in 1816 with the object of promoting emancipation by sending
the freedmen to Africa. Some of the slave States, moreover, had laws
compelling the freedmen to leave the State