CHAPTER VII.

The increase of crime in the United States proportionate to the increase of population and wealth-Mob law -The doctrine of the real or pretended opinions of a majority of the people, though opposed to established law, the governing principle which is to direct their conduct-The frequent outrages on property and human life committed within the last few years in the United States-Essential difference between the character of the riots in the old and new world-Late President JacksonHis maxim, "that every man had a right to interpret the laws as he understood them"-His assumption of "responsibility" -and frequent outrage of the laws of his country while President of the United States-American citizens being themselves "the source and foundation of all law," they claim a right to over-rule its authority at discretion-Lynch Law in the United States-Its name-Derivation and origin of its practice-Equally directed to the destruction of private property, as of human life-Plunder and burning of the Charleston convent, with particulars relating thereto-The carrying concealed weapons, a general practice in the United StatesThe Stiletto-The Bowie knife-Appalling murders at Vicksburgh, under the Lynch law system-Particulars thereofConduct of the public press in relation thereto-Concluding remarks.

As the Republic advances in population and wealth, so also does it increase in crime, and the impatient and turbulent disposition of its citizens. The established laws of the land, that in by-gone times principally owed their influence, to the support they received from public opinion, rather

MOB LAW.

197

perhaps, than from any inherent, or admitted power in the executive to suppress disorder and outrage, have in many instances ceased to afford security, or protection, to property or to life, and are forced to yield to the domineering influence-the insulting dictation of a species of Mob law, for which apologies are even found-ruling with most destructive influence, the destinies of this many favoured land, under the dangerous, and no less generally adopted notion, that the real, or even pretended opinions of a majority of the People-though it be in opposition to their own law, is the governing principle that should at all times control, and direct their conduct. Yet, this doctrine, so extravagant in its assertion, and equally dangerous in its practice, so utterly subversive of every thing like order, or the just influence of a properly constituted government of laws, is even insisted upon by those very Americans who are loudest in extolling the superior excellence of their institutions, and the unerring fitness with which every part of the very complex machinery of their government, is framed and put together—“Tis true," they state, “that the laws should maintain their supremacy, but at all hazards, that the voice of an undoubted majority of the people should at all times exercise its legitimate rights."-Aye! truly -and so indeed do we say, with many others as loud in reprobating their conduct, whenever these rights are fairly and properly insisted on, through their appointed organs-their chosen and legitimate representatives; but not in the extended exposition

of these modern sticklers of this worst species of tyranny, and with whom the exercise of these asserted rights, more aptly means, the privilege to the very populace to enforce the most illegal and extravagant pretensions, by the worst means of violence and crime by tarring and feathering-by burning and conflagration-by open, heartless, and coldblooded butcheries, perpetrated almost within view, and in the very hearing of the judicial authorities of the country-by daily and continued assassinations in the public ways, for which redress is never had, and indeed but seldom sought for; by these, and all such like means, is the omnipotent will of the majority of the "sovereign people" to be determined, and which when thus expressed, is to sanction of itself, the numerous and appalling crimes-the otherwise unheard-of atrocities, committed in this land of promise and equal laws, under the oft abused names of "liberty and justice."

It were, we confess, a wearisome task to wade through the detail of outrage and crime of the few last preceding years, committed under 'the sanction of the popular will, and now identified with the domestic or internal history of the country-the numerous lives that have been sacrificed to appease the morbid appetites, and infuriated passions of a heartless and fluctuating Mobocracy-or the reckless destruction of private property in pursuance of its behest; proclaiming to the world, an entire social disorganization, a fearful disregard of the usual restraints imposed by law, order and good govern

ON PROPERTY AND LIFE.

199

ment, and of which the excesses committed at Charleston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, Vicksburgh, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, with many other places, throughout the Union, are fearful examples. It is by such means, if permitted to exist, that the fixed and established rules of American society, must from henceforth be regulated-nay! the lives of individuals be determined-the course of every man's conduct, even towards himself, or to his family, especially defined, and marked out for his adoption, under the dread of incurring the displeasure, and becoming subject to the anathemas of this irresponsible and tyrannic inquisition, that fully conscious of its power, will suffer no interference with its most capricions will, or the uncontrolled exercise of its insatiate despotism.

"There is," to adopt the language of a modern writer, "a marked and very essential difference between the mobs and riots of the old country, and those that disgrace the new world; that whilst the outbreaks of popular violence in America, which traces its being to as varied causes as the wild caprice and unrestrained passion of man could make them, are frequently the offspring of some private or local grievance, sought to be redressed, some individual wrong unatoned for, some revengeful spirit unsatiated, and are generally levelled at the party, who possesses neither the influence of power, or of wealth to sustain him; popular tumult with us, on the other hand, is seldom excited, except for the attainment of some

concession,-some real or imaginary right, or to assert some principle deemed indispensable to liberty and justice."

It is not our province, if even within the compass of our abilities, to seek or point out a remedy for these evils; they are deep-seated, and inherent in the American system of internal government, weak and impotent as it confessedly is, in exacting an obedience to the laws, framed for the protection, and proper control of its citizens-administered as they are known to be, with a laxity that directly encourages their violation, and extends immunity to the offender, proportioned only to the daring and deep atrocity of his crime. A turbulent and factious spirit has preserved itself of late years, in every intersection of the country, that scoffs at all order, tramples under foot the supremacy of all law, and only limits its licentiousness to the standard of its uncertain, and vacillating will. A la lanterne !—A la lanterne! was the cry of the French revolution. "Down with the Senate,"-" down with the judiciary,"-" down with aristocracy,""down with the banks, and all monopoly,"-the war-whoop of the more modern revolutionists of the new world, proclaimed from the house-tops, the high-ways and corners of every street, and made the subject the grateful theme, of every late public disquisition.

It was a convenient maxim of the late President Jackson, for whom, good intentions are claimed by every party, distinctly and openly avowed by him,