Washington ? The U.S. Senate apologized Monday for never having outlawed lynching, which between 1880 and 1960 took the lives of more than 4,700 people, most of them blacks.

“This (lynching) is really an act of domestic terrorism, and I think it’s quite appropriate today that we’re discussing this as our country leads the fight against terrorism abroad,” said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., one of two sponsors of the apology resolution, along with Sen. George Allen, R-Va. The resolution passed by voice vote without objection.

Lynchings, defined as any mob killing, not just hanging, have been documented in 46 states. Victims included Italians, Jews, Asians, Latinos and women, but most were blacks. Historians have documented 4,742 lynchings between 1890 and 1960, and 80 percent occurred in Southern states.

Fewer than 1 percent of lynchings were followed by serious attempts to bring those responsible to justice.

More than 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress in the first half of the 20th century, and seven presidents urged their passage. The legislation would have made lynching a federal crime and exposed complicit local authorities to possible federal prosecution. Three times the House of Representatives passed such bills, but the Senate, with Southern conservatives wielding their filibuster powers, refused to act.

“The Senate failed these Americans. If we truly want to move forward, we must admit that failure and learn from it,” Landrieu said.

Sen. Mark Pryor, D-Ark., right, shakes hands with James Cameron, the only known lynching survivor in America. The Senate voted Monday to apologize to lynching victims and their families for the Senate's failure to enact federal anti-lynching laws during the first part of the 20th century. Behind Cameron is Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., a co-sponsor of the apology resolution.

The resolution apologized not only for the Senate’s earlier failure to act but also to the descendants of lynching victims. Several hundred descendants crowded into the U.S. Capitol on Monday to witness the Senate’s vote.

One witness present was the oldest known survivor of a lynching, James Cameron, now 91. At age 16 he was arrested in Marion, Ind., with two companions for the murder of a white man and alleged rape of a white woman. A mob seized them, hanged his two friends and had a noose around his neck when somehow a voice protesting his innocence prevailed. Cameron was convicted of robbery but pardoned in 1993.

“They had the rope around my neck, and they were going to lynch me,” Cameron said Monday night. In a prepared statement he said of the resolution: “The apology is a good idea, but it still won’t bring anyone back. And I hope the next time it won’t take so long to admit our mistakes.”