There were five lynchings in South Carolina during Tillman's first term, and thirteen during his second. Tillman had to walk a narrow line in the debates over lynching, since most of his supporters believed in the collective right of white men in a community to dispense mob justice, especially in cases of alleged rape. Yet as governor, he was sworn to uphold the rule of law. He attempted to finesse the matter by seeking to appeal to both sides, demanding that the law be followed, but that he would, as he stated in 1892, "willingly lead a mob in lynching a Negro who had committed an assault on a white woman". Under criticism, he amended this to a willingness to lead the lynching of "a man of any color who assaults a virtuous woman of any color"—the adjective "virtuous" limiting the commitment, in Tillman's view, to assaults on white women.