Police as we know them are a product of modern cities, where there are so many people, most of whom do not know each other, that volunteer community-enforcement becomes untenable. So by the 1850s, London, Boston, NYC, and other industrializing cities had police depts.

This was implemented by city officials of varying political persuasions. Back then, the American South was very much not full of industrializing cities. It *was* pretty full of vigilantism, which is more associated with an *absence* of police or a state than with them.

The West was more similar to the South on this point--in fact, so was everyplace that wasn't a major Northern city. That's why Lincoln's famous Lyceum speech says that every single state is overrun by *daily* mob violence, but *does not even mention police*!

Modern American police departments are a creature of Northern cities, copied from some European cities. Some 19c European countries also had national police. The history of policing in America just doesn't fit into modern categories, but 20c scholars shoehorned it anyway.

There was some association between policing and well-off "law & order" types--but, until the very late 19c, this was largely confined to places like *Boston and NYC.* Police were also associated with urban political machines, especially in NYC.

Southern commercial hubs--and all regional trade centers--did have police departments fairly early on, because they were full of busy strangers. Police in cities where slavery was legal certainly helped uphold it, but police were rare in most of the South (and West) pre-CW.

The federal government created *federal law enforcement* to deal with slavery-related issues. Initially, they were used to hunt down fugitive slaves *in the North,* in violation of local laws, which was a major factor leading to the Civil War.

Then they were used in the post-CW South, along with soldiers, to try and uphold Reconstruction efforts--not police or militias. After that was abandoned, the South, and the rest of America, began to rapidly adopt the policing model of Northern cities.

But for much of the 19c, you had to hire Pinkerton detectives or private guards if you wanted "police"---local police were not even always armed. The militarized police of today are very recent, and once again the product of Northern cities (and overseas wars).

By far the most common type of 19c violence, and certainly the most vicious incidents, was mob violence. It was perpetrated by citizens, not the police. In NYC and Boston, there were many incidents where police rescued people from rampaging mobs.

The national police forces of 20c Europe evoke horror, as they should. And 20c American police were involved in plenty of brutality. But what distinguishes American history is the long reign of mob violence in lieu of professional police or a strong state. /