solely against criminal assaults on women, it might have a color of justification; but while that is the offence for which negroes are mainly lynched, there are not infrequently summary executions of them for murder, arson and theft. Heinous and inexcusable brutalities have also been perpetrated upon this people for no other reason than their affiliation with the Republican party. A carnival of injustice and cruelty drove them from the domain of politics. Demoralization followed; and then a retributive justice brought disaster to those who were the chief instigators of the forceful exclusion of the negro from the political field.
"Lynching may be correctly described as the infliction of summary punishments for alleged offences, without authority of law; and there is among sane minds common agreement that such lawless violence is an execrable usurpation of ordained legal functions. As a mode of punishment for the freedmen criminal class, there is never, under any circumstances, excuse or justification for resorting to it. It cannot be said that it is to be approved by the best sentiment of any community, yet when inflicted upon negroes for the commission of certain crimes, the perpetrators are assured of absolute immunity from punishment. No negro is likely to be legally acquitted in the South of the charge of criminal assault, or, in fact, of any heinous offence, when a strong presumption of guilt exists. No negro charged with criminal assault upon a white woman ever has been acquitted. Hence, there is justification for the assertion that, so far as the white people are concerned, the impulse to indulge in mob brutalities arises from their low sense of accountability to law; that their lawlessness is the se-
