It is generally supposed that the custom or practice of lynching in this country had its origin in the method of punishment used by a Virginian farmer named Lynch, who during the Revolutionary War sought in this way to maintain order in his community or section,—hence, Lynch’s Law, and Lynch law, from which comes the word “lynching.” In the beginning, however, the term seldom, if ever, conveyed the meaning “to put to death”; nor does it appear that Negroes were lynched even so often as whites. The methods of punishment in the majority of cases consisted of riding the victim on a rail, beating or whipping him, and often of giving him a coat of tar and feathers.…
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