Definition
Flogging is corporal punishment administered by beating a person with a whip, lash, rod, or similar instrument. As a legal term, it refers specifically to a formally imposed penalty—either judicially ordered or administered under military discipline—rather than to an informal or private beating. In American legal usage, the term is largely historical: flogging was abolished as a punishment in the U.S. Army by act of Congress in 1861 and in the U.S. Navy in 1872. Its continued relevance in legal research is primarily in the context of Eighth Amendment doctrine, the history of corporal punishment, and comparative or international materials where such penalties persist.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "Infliction of punishment by dealing blows or whipping."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): Webster's 1913 does not offer a direct definition of flogging as a practice; its only entries under the term are mechanical—a "flogging chisel" and "flogging hammer," tools used in metalworking.
The gap here is subtle but worth noting for researchers. The common and legal meanings are not in conflict, but the common usage encompasses any whipping or beating, including informal or private contexts. The legal meaning is narrower: flogging as a legal term presupposes a formal punitive authority—a court, a military command, or a governmental body—imposing the punishment. A researcher encountering "flogging" in a legal source should not assume the source is addressing private violence; it almost certainly refers to state-sanctioned corporal punishment.
Common Confusion
Flogging, whipping, and flagellation are used interchangeably in many historical legal sources, including Bouvier's, which cross-references WHIPPING directly. Anderson similarly treats the two as equivalent. Researchers should be aware that the substantive legal content—including the statutory abolition dates—appears under WHIPPING in most historical dictionaries. Searching only under FLOGGING may cause researchers to miss the fuller treatment of the subject in these sources. In some international jurisdictions, "caning" describes a closely related but formally distinct mode of corporal punishment; the two should not be conflated when working with comparative materials.
Why It Matters in Research
The primary research trap is terminological fragmentation. Historical legal dictionaries, statutes, and case law distribute this subject across multiple headwords: FLOGGING, WHIPPING, CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, and STRIPES. Bouvier points researchers to WHIPPING; Anderson stops at a brief cross-reference. A researcher who follows only one thread will likely miss relevant material.
The abolition dates are specific and verifiable. Bouvier cites U.S. Revised Statutes § 1342 (Army, 1861) and § 1642 (Navy, 1872). These statutory references are the anchor for any research into the legislative history of corporal punishment in federal military law.
In constitutional research, flogging appears most often in the background of Eighth Amendment cruel and unusual punishment analysis. The amendment's history is inseparable from the history of corporal punishment, and flogging—along with branding and the pillory—is frequently invoked as a baseline example of punishments the Founders would have recognized but that modern doctrine has moved toward prohibiting or severely restricting. Researchers working on the originalist versus evolving-standards debate in Eighth Amendment jurisprudence will encounter flogging as a recurring reference point.
International and comparative law researchers should note that flogging or caning remains a legally authorized punishment in a number of jurisdictions. Sources originating outside the United States may treat flogging as a live legal question rather than a historical artifact, and the definitional content may differ accordingly.
State-level research requires attention to the pre-Civil War period. Several states permitted judicially ordered whipping or flogging as a criminal sanction well into the nineteenth century, and the historical record is uneven. Researchers working in state court records, legislative archives, or criminal codes from that period should expect inconsistent terminology and incomplete indexing.
Historical Dictionary Support
Anderson and Bouvier are in close agreement on substance: both define flogging as beating with a whip or lash, both note the Army abolition of 1861 and the Navy abolition of 1872, and both treat the term as essentially synonymous with whipping. Bouvier provides the more useful entry for research purposes by supplying specific statutory citations. Anderson's entry is more compressed and offers no independent analysis.
Neither dictionary addresses flogging as a common-law criminal penalty in the states, the use of flogging in penal institutions, or its constitutional dimensions—all of which became significant in subsequent decades. This is a meaningful gap. Both dictionaries were written at a time when federal abolition of military flogging was relatively recent and the broader question of corporal punishment in civilian criminal justice had not yet been fully resolved. Researchers should not treat either dictionary's silence on these points as evidence that the issues were settled; they were not.
Neither source addresses the question of whether judicially ordered flogging in state courts would have been cognizable as cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment as applied to the states—a question that only became relevant with twentieth-century incorporation doctrine. Historical dictionaries are, by design, unable to anticipate this development.
Jurisdictional Note
Flogging as a formal judicial punishment has been effectively eliminated in the United States, though the constitutional framework prohibiting it was developed over time rather than enacted in a single moment. In a small number of foreign legal systems, flogging or closely related corporal punishments remain authorized by statute, and researchers working with international materials should consult jurisdiction-specific sources rather than relying on American or English-law definitions.
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
See Law Mind Encyclopedia: Corporal Punishment; Eighth Amendment — Cruel and Unusual Punishment; Military Justice — Historical Development.