as the right of self defense, and we actually have as the result a recognized public senti ment which it is not entirely absurd to call "lynch law." This is the philosophy by which lynching thrives—especially in the South where the spirit of individual liberty and individual license has always been keener than elsewhere; and not only is this the state of mind of those who lynch, but con sciously or unconsciously it is that of those. who look on and are silent. In a large sense this spirit or temper is possibly a realization of what the prophets of Democ racy foretold. The Demos is becoming self conscious. Democracy is growing to be less a form of government and more a slogan of liberty. So far, pure Democracy or the Democracy of Rousseau, or of the philosophic Anarchist, has been lost in representative government, but latterly one notes a ten dency especially in the South, to revert to this more primitive notion of government. While the town meeting, for example, is dying out in New England, the township and the village government are becoming popular in the South. And even in the North, the same tendency is noticeable in the growing propaganda for the Referendum, Home Rule, and the variousforms of Social ism. With the development of this more primitive Democracy the right to govern and the right to punish without any inter mediary institutions become equally vivid conceptions. A crime against society be comes a crime against the individual and arouses his sense of self defense and self preservation; he no longer looks to the ap pointed officers of the law for protection, but becomes in his own estimation an officer of the law himself, until consciously or uncon sciously he comes to regard lynching as one of his sacred and inalienable rights; the power to lynch inspires in him a belief in the right to lynch. If there is any truth in these conclusions then it is obvious that successful remedial legislation cannot be expected from commu
nities given over to lynching or which are indifferent to it. The State Legislatures can pass anti-lynch laws, but there will be no one to enforce them, for as we have seen, no law can be effective without the sanction and support of a strong community spirit. Our notions of government and our attitude to wards law may be in a transitional stage, and time and education may work a cure, but the people are not likely to appreciate the enor mity of the crime of lynching until punish ment sure, swift, and inevitable is visited upon the lynchers and those aiding and abet ting them. The law will not be respected until it asserts its power to punish. This punishment will not come from the guilty community, for those who lynch will not punish themselves, and no state will enforce laws that the great mass of the people do not want enforced. If the States cannot cope with the situation then the powers of the Nation should be invoked. Congress should be empowered to pass a law making all who lynch and all who instigate, aid, abet or shield lynchers, guilty of a crime against the United States. This law would be enforced. A few United States marshals and detectives could in a week discover the guilty ones and place them behind the bars of a Federal prison. It is as easy to discover a lyncher as a moonshiner, and it is of infinitely more importance that he should be discov ered and punished. If the object of our constitution is to insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos terity, it ought to include the power to pun ish those who defy the State, and take life without due process of law. If it was worth while to amend the constitution to prevent the denial of the right to vote, it is also worth while to amend it to prevent and pun ish the denial of justice. There is much to be said in favor of a Federal law. In the first place, the crime is national in its importance; in the eyes of the world lynching is a reproach not so much on
