Southport Telegraph

Progress of Lynch Law.

It is an undeniable truth that there is an increasing spirit abroad, which disregards the supremacy of the law, and assumes to right public and private wrongs, independent of tribunals—civil or military. Scarcely a week passes by without our reading of some appalling outrage committed by those, who have taken justice out of the hands of the law, and instituted a lynch tribunal. Not many years since instances of the exercise of lynch law, were few and far between—more recently, they are multiplying with fearful progress. The enemies of republican governments abroad, will doubtless attribute this state of things to the peculiar genius of our institutions. They will call it the fault of Republics. These charges no American is prepared to admit. But while we repudiate the idea that lynch law is an evil attendant upon our peculiar form of government, we ought to be ready to give some explanation of the causes which produce this growing evil in our country. It is generally conceded that we as a nation are progressing in public morals; education, temperance and sobriety, and the various benevolent and philanthropic institutions of the day, are advancing with the most cheering indications of the happiest results. Why then is it, that respect for the laws of the land is continually lessening? This is a grave question and one which immediately concerns the future welfare of the American people.

The city of Cincinnati which sustains a high reputation for public morals, has recently been the scene of lynch law in the most appalling degree. For more than twelve hours the city authorities were set at defiance by the mob, and lawless violence triumph over law. But the most unparalleled case of wholesale lynching, has recently been perpetrated on the Mississippi—More than sixty persons who were charged with gambling, counterfeiting &c., were drowned in the river without the forms of trial, or any regard to the due process of law. Indeed the number of outrages of this description which have recently occurred, it would be too tedious to recapitulate. The frequency of these occurrences it is feared, has a tendency to lessen in the public mind, that feeling of alarm and abhorrence with which they should be regarded. If the spirit of lynch law continues to progress throughout the country in the ratio it has done for the last few years, we shall at no distant day be involved in the most frightful condition of anarchy.