The United States of Lyncherdom

The United States of Lyncherdom was an essay by Mark Twain written in 1901.^[1] He was prompted to do so after the lynching of Will Godley, his grandfather French Godley, and Eugene Carter (aka Barrett). They were accused in the rape and murder of Gazelle Wild (or Casselle Wilds) on August 19, 1901 ^[2] in Pierce City, Missouri, located in Twain's home state. It blames lynching in the United States on the herd mentality that prevails among Americans.^[1] Twain decided that the country was not ready for the essay, and shelved it.^[1] A redacted version was finally published in 1923, when Twain's literary executor, Albert Bigelow Paine, slipped it into a posthumous collection, Europe and Elsewhere.^[1]

Twain discusses law enforcement officials who stopped lynchings. One was Sheriff Joseph Merrill of Carroll County, Georgia^[3] and the other was Thomas Beloat of Gibson County, Indiana .^[3]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Blount Jr., Roy (2008-07-03). "America's Original Superstar". Time Magazine.
^ Ginzburg, Ralph (1997). 100 Years of Lynchings. Black Classic Press. p. 42. ISBN 0933121180.
^ ^a ^b The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine: Volume LXII. New York: Macmillan & Co. Ldt.. 1901. pp. 631.

External links

The United States of Lyncherdom

Works by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)

Novels	The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today • The Adventures of Tom Sawyer • The Prince and the Pauper • Adventures of Huckleberry Finn • A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court • The American Claimant • Tom Sawyer Abroad • Pudd'nhead Wilson • Tom Sawyer, Detective • Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc • A Double Barrelled Detective Story • A Horse's Tale • A Dog's Tale • The Mysterious Stranger

Short stories	"General Washington's Negro Body-Servant" • "My Late Senatorial Secretaryship" • "Advice to Little Girls" • "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" • "The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg" • "The War Prayer" • "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven" • "A Literary Nightmare" • "Luck" • "The Stolen White Elephant" • "1601: Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors" • A Dog's Tale • "A Murder, a Mystery, and a Marriage"

Short story collections	The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County • Mark Twain's (Burlesque) Autobiography and First Romance • Sketches New and Old • A True Story and the Recent Carnival of Crime • Punch, Brothers, Punch! and Other Sketches • Merry Tales • The £1,000,000 Bank Note and Other New Stories • The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Letters from the Earth • The Library of Humor •

Plays	Is He Dead?

Essays	Edmund Burke on Croker and Tammany • How to Tell a Story and Other Essays • Christian Science • Fenimore Cooper's Literary Offenses • The Awful German Language

Non-fiction	The Innocents Abroad • Memoranda (monthly column) • Roughing It • Old Times on the Mississippi • A Tramp Abroad • Life on the Mississippi • Following the Equator • What Is Man? • Is Shakespeare Dead? • Queen Victoria's Jubilee • Autobiography of Mark Twain • Mark Twain's Notebook • King Leopold's Soliloquy • The Private History of a Campaign That Failed • Mark Twain's Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperialist Writings on the Philippine-American War • The Bible According to Mark Twain: Writings on Heaven, Eden, and the Flood