Danny Williams



Mob Violence and Legal Justice in Texas: The Political Ramifications of Henry Smith’s Lynching, 1893

Henry Smith’s horrific lynching in February, 1893 ignited a sharp debate over the morality of mob justice in Gilded Age Texas. While Governor James S. Hogg denounced the death as an act contrary to the laws of civilized people, state Senator Thomas L. Nugent, Hogg’s long-time opponent, countered that while regrettable, the malignant affair constituted an understandable response to a crime so heinous as to outrage humanity. Both positions illustrate the difficulty that men of reason faced confronting the racial bigotry and violence that scarred the South in the late nineteenth century and the deep divide that existed.

The events surrounding Henry Smith’s death in Paris, Texas, sparked a debate between Hogg and Nugent over lynching laws. Accused of the rape and murder of a three year old Paris girl, Myrtle Vance, twenty-three year old Smith, faced a mob of over twenty-thousand angry whites in Paris, Texas. After being seized in Hope, Arkansas, Smith was loaded on a train headed for Paris. When he reached Texarkana, Texas Smith was transferred to an open boxcar so the crowd of two thousand white men that formed could taunt him. Texarkanans “made an effort to take and lynch him,”[1] but were persuaded to let the mob in Paris take action. After a short train ride, Smith reached the awaiting mob in Paris. Though he never received a trial, Smith was taken to a pasture where he would be murdered.

When Smith realized he was going to be killed, he begged for his life, to no avail. Smith asked to be shot by Myrtle’s father or the sheriff however, his requests were denied and he was informed that he would die at the stake. A ten foot tall scaffold was erected in the middle of a pasture, so all the spectators could observe the murder. Around the scaffolding, “was a surging mass of humanity for nearly a hundred yards in every direction.”[2]

They began his torture by “thrusting red hot irons under his feet,”[3] and then proceeded to torture Smith by rolling the hot irons on his stomach, arms and back. As eyewitnesses recalled, the climax was reached “when the irons were thrust into his eyes and burned both away, and thrust into his throat and [Smith] still being lived.”[4] Smith screamed and wrenched in pain as the torture continued. Oil was poured all over him and the ten foot scaffold, a match was applied and Smith began to burn. The spectators looked on and, “in a little while he became still… he fell upon the burning platform…after ten minutes he pulled himself up and stood up erect.”[5] The men tied him up again, threw him back on the fire and again ignited the inferno that finally extinguished his life.

People had come on train from all around Texas and Arkansas, “Dallas, Fort Worth, Sherman, Denison, Bonham, Texarkana, Fort Smith, and a party from Hempstead County Arkansas.”[6] Men, women and children, many not much older than Myrtle Vance, were whipped into frenzy when the lynching took place. A prominent colored minister, who witnessed the lynching said, “In the name of God, I command you to cease this torture.”[7] He was quickly butted in the head with a rifle and thrown out of town. The mob in Paris had grown out of control, and raised much debate whether the lynching was lawful.

The lynching generated controversy on both sides: those who thought the mob should face a penalty for their crime, such as Governor Hogg, and others who believed the punishment fit the crime. Hogg had some experience with acts of rage. As Robert Cotner explains in James Hogg: A Biography: “while working for a sheriff in 1871 Hogg was approached by outlaws, drug out of town, and shot.”[8] Hogg, a Progressive Democrat, called the murder at Paris “a disgrace to this State.”[9]

Hogg became the first native born Governor of Texas in 1890. Throughout his Governorship, Hogg did much to improve respect for law enforcement, and brought together the “Hogg Law’s,” which took on the railroad and large companies who owned land in Texas. When it came time for re-election in 1892, Hogg was opposed by Populist Party member Thomas L. Nugent. This was the beginning the conflict between Hogg and Nugent.

As a former preacher, judge, state senator, and political activist, Nugent’s radicalism made him an opponent of Hogg. Not only did he welcome the opposition of Hogg in the Governor’s race of 1892, he relished in the fact that he would be taking on a Progressive Democrat. He lost the election, but came away with twenty-five percent of the vote. Nugent was believed to have high morals by the voters and that is why he did rather well in the Governor’s race. However, Nugent’s stance on the lynching of Smith in 1893 differs from his public perception in 1892. The war of words that ensued started with Governor Hogg’s message to the Texas Legislature.

Hogg sent a special and urgent message to the Texas Legislature demanding retribution for Smith’s lynching and address the lack of lynching laws in Texas. He detailed a six point plan of action. As Hogg put it, “a patriotic line of wisdom and justice now becomes necessary to prevent its spread.”[10]

1. That when any person, being a prisoner, or in a jail or other place of confinement, or under arrest or in official custody or restraint, or is held by or under the authority of any county, city, or State, officer, or is restrained by virtue of any legal process, shall be taken from such place or authority in violation of law and put to death, the county within which such person was so held or confined, and from which he may have been so taken, shall be liable to pay a specified large sum to surviving husband, wife, children or parents of said person who shall so suffer death.

2. Make the county so liable for damages when any person not being a prisoner or under legal duress, is mobbed by two or more persons, and the said criminals are not within a specified time indicted and prosecuted for their crime.

3. Make such person or corporation also liable for damages who takes part in, or aids by acts, encourages by words or gestures, or who keeps watch, or in any way abets in the mobbing of a person.

4. Give the surviving relatives an action in the district court of any county where the murder was committed, or in any county where either or all of the plaintiffs may reside when the action is instituted.

5. Render the sheriff ineligible to hold his office, and provide for his removal when a prisoner is taken from the jail, or from himself, or from any officer or lawful authority in his presence, and is put to death by a mob.

6. Provide for a change of venue, either before or after indictment, in all cases of mob violence.[11]

Nugent responded, “His recommendations are not to be thought of for a moment as proper to be enacted into laws.”[12] Nugent believed Hogg had sent this message only to quiet the public outcry after the lynching. Nugent stated, “[The Laws] extremely born of the hot impulses of the moment, and essentially are unwise and unjust.”[13] Nugent believed that Hogg’s call to action was merely reactionary, and in time Hogg would see Nugent’s point of view.

Hogg still demanded action on the men responsible for the lynching of Smith and insisted that the legislature should “adopt suitable measures to either prevent mob law or to punishment all murderous executioners.”[14] Hogg did not care how the laws came into effect, but wanted justice for the lynching of Smith and countless others. Hogg’s call to action was uncharacteristic of lawmakers during this time, especially in the South and brought forth more exception from Nugent.

In continued dialog about the lynching in Paris, Nugent came out and proclaimed that the actions of the mob were understandable, due to the extreme nature of Smith’s crime. Nugent argued, “Does anyone believe that the father of Myrtle was in a rational frame of mind?”[15] Nugent also argued “that almost any community in Texas, or elsewhere, might, under like circumstances, have done the same thing.”[16] He believed that anybody in the heat of the moment would have performed the same way the mob did in that situation. Nugent was giving the mob a free pass on the murder of Smith.

Nugent pleaded with the Legislature not to follow Hogg’s demands, but to “Open up questions of reform in respect to the administration of the laws which I cannot now venture upon.”[17] Nugent did not care what happened to Smith, but he wanted to get involved in a battle of words with Hogg. When Nugent was again questioned about what he would do in response to the lynching he had no suggestions.

Henry Smith’s tragic death quickly faded from public memory and nothing came of Hogg’s outcry against mob violence and lynching. The lynching of Smith, one of many, did little to further legislation, but the Paris, Texas mob’s actions, the Governor’s proposal and his opponent’s response did, however, represent a conflicted South that would for decades to come be a boiling pot for racial unrest and instability. In those decades, mob violence was still a common occurrence throughout the South, and politicians would debate over its legality for many years. Sixty years after Smith’s lynching, the Civil Rights Movement swept across the South. If not for Governor Hogg and other politicians in the years following Smith’s lynching, the Civil Rights Movement may not have developed.

Primary Documents

Cotner, Robert. James Hogg: A Biography. Austin: University of Austin Press, 1959.

Dallas Morning News, February 2, 1893,

Dallas Morning News, February 8, 1893,

Dallas Morning News, February 17, 1893,

Nugent, Catharine. ed. Life Work of Thomas L. Nugent. Chicago: Laird and Lee, 1896.

Raines, C.W. ed. Speeches and State Papers of James Stephen Hogg Ex-Governor of Texas with a Sketch of His Life. Austin: The State Printing Company, 1905.

Well-Barnett, Ida. The Red Record. London: Echo Library, 2005.

Secondary Documents

Famous Texans. Jim Hogg. [Updated 25 July 2000; cited 12 March 2008]. Available from

Handbook of Texas Online. James Stephen Hogg. [Updated 19 January 2008; cited 02 May 2008]. Available from

Handbook of Texas Online. Thomas Lewis Nugent. [Updated 18 January 2008; cited 02 May 2008]. Available from

Raines, C.W. ed. Speeches and State Papers of James Stephen Hogg Ex-Governor of Texas with a Sketch of His Life. Austin: The State Printing Company, 1905.

Wikipedia. Jim Hogg. [Updated 05 May 2008; cited 06 May 2008]. Available from

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[1] Dallas Morning News, February 2, 1893, p.1, col. 1.

[2] Ibid

[3] Ibid

[4] Dallas Morning News, February 2, 1893, p.1, col. 2

[5] Ibid

[6] Well-Barnett, Ida. The Red Record. London: Echo Library, 2005, pg 24.

[7] Well-Barnett, pg 26.

[8] Cotner, Robert. James Hogg: A Biography. Austin: University of Austin Press, 1959.

[9] Dallas Morning News, February 8, 1893, p.1, col. 1

[10] Raines, C.W. ed. Speeches and State Papers of James Stephen Hogg Ex-Governor of Texas with a Sketch of His Life. Austin: The State Printing Company, 1905, pg. 247.

[11] Raines, 247.

[12] Nugent, Catharine. ed. Life Work of Thomas L. Nugent. Chicago: Laird and Lee, 1896, pg. 250.

[13] Ibid

[14] Raines, pg. 245.

[15] Nugent, Catharine. ed. Life Work of Thomas L. Nugent. Chicago: Laird and Lee, 1896, pg. 249.

[16] Ibid

[17] Nugent, pg. 251.

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