vigilance committee
an unauthorized committee of citizens organized for the maintenance of order and the summary punishment of crime in the absence of regular or efficient courts.
History/Historical. (in the South) an organization of citizens using extralegal means to control or intimidate Black people and abolitionists and, during the Civil War, to suppress Union loyalists.
Origin of vigilance committee
1Words Nearby vigilance committee
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use vigilance committee in a sentence
The city had good government for twenty years after the operations of that vigilance committee.
Ancestors | Gertrude AthertonAs the judges and police could not control these criminals, nearly two hundred good citizens formed a "vigilance committee."
Stories of California | Ella M. SextonNot long after, the vigilance committee hanged four men, and roughs and law-breakers left town for the mines.
Stories of California | Ella M. SextonA vigilance committee, that dernier resort of the order-loving Westerner of that period, was formed.
Ocean to Ocean on Horseback | Willard GlazierAt last the people organized themselves into a vigilance committee and ran down the thieves.
Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete | Charles M. Skinner
British Dictionary definitions for vigilance committee
(in the US) a self-appointed body of citizens organized to maintain order, punish crime, etc, where an efficient system of courts does not exist
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
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