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Three Dots, per Ann. ]
Volume I.]
ON |
SANGUINARY PUNISHMENTS.
j Uejjrs. Printers,
THE following observations
a re with much differencefubmitted to the
confederation of the ensuing Legislature ;
and your giving them a place in your pa
per will oblige a Subscriber.
puaiihments should be made ufeful,
Voltaire'.
AS the bands of all social compacts
depend for strength and permanency upon
the support which they receive from every
individual member of them, it confequent
]y becomes the duty of each one to con
tribute his aid towards the perfection of
every system connected with their welfare,
happiuefs, and security. This is an obli
gation enjoined by natural laws* indepen
dent of civil regulations.
Imprcffed with this idea, I take upon
me the talk of pointing out, what seems
to me a political error; but which, per
haps, more properly belongs to the repre
ientatives of the people to correCt. It is
one among the many valuable privileges
which our excellent conflitution allows us,
that the liberty of the press remains invio
late ; and that all are permitted to descant
with freedom on the measures of govern
ment. This privilege is inestimable, and
while it continues, willbethe surest means
of preventing our civil rights from being
infringed or abused ; as it furnifhes to eve
ry one an opportunity ofexpofing to view
the mal-adminiftraticn of public officers.
It is a centinel upon their conduCt and
measures.—l fhonld lament to fee an abuse
of this blessing, or that the press should
groan with the anonymous pieces of vile
declaimers, ordifcontented partizans, who,
under the mask of patriotism, conceal priv
ate or interested views, or who, amidst all
their ostentatious display of disinterested
ness have plainly for their objeCt the loaves
and fiflies.
It furnifhes the mod grateful sensations
to the mind to view the astonishing nro
grers wtiiviftTrerewcnci nutnies have mane
in all the arts and enjoyments of civilized
life. Though but just emerged from the
horrors and confufion the inevitable atten
dants of a revolution; they have advanced
with an flnparalleied fwiftnefs to a state of
security and happiness. The system of
legislation, of all others the most intricate,
has been modelled upon a plan almost bor
dering on perfection : this may be aimed
at, but it cannot be attained. Our Federal
Constitution, has been framed from the
experience of part ages; and tho’ uniting
in itfelf the wisdom of most other govern
ments famed for their civilization or their
laws, it is still not without errors or de
fefts. The part of it which claims my
attention is that relating to criminal juris
prudence: this still bears a sanguinary hue,
which I fervently wish to fee abolished,
and of the impropriety of which it is the
of the subsequent obfetvations to
evince.
Os punishments I (hall speak generally,
hut more particularly of the punishment
*>f death for certain crimes.
I am well convinced that with some the
arguments I may advance will not be tak
for incontrovertible axioms, or indubi
table truths; and lam aware of the little
“Mention that iscommonlv bestowed upon
;hofe e flays which make their appearance
: - le fleeting sheet of a day. In the per
flh.ible form of a newspaper they but too
Muom meet with more than a cursory pe
lufal, and are afterwards thrown by as un
worthy of a more serious or lading con
aeration.
These reflections however, do not deter
roe from pnrfuing the inclination of my
romd, and tho’ I do not expeCt that my
eftorts alone will be fufficient to create a
le ‘ orm in the penal code of our state, I
?; J y perhaps stimulate others with the
ame view to an exertion of the power
£' ;'en them either by their abilities or po
r‘ ICa I Atuation. If in the former lam un
u.ccefsful, and ffiould but succeed in the
T ha PPy 5 Ido not,
, u > con soled by the reflection
• aving difeharged asocial duty.
_ c 1 lle observation which I have adopted
a -xt at the head of this eflay appears to
e to have been very (lightly attended to
•,. In the systems of laws
»; hK f t^ e y iiave framed for the preven
of crimes, thev-feem to have been in-
more by a spirit of barbarity and
veng ej than a regard for the welfare and
l et * v °f individuals and facietv. They
v * faifely imbibed the idea, thauthofe
Augusta herald.
Printed by GEORGE F. RANDOLPH ib 5 WILLIAM T Bl]\ ! ( "R „ w ~ P
■ 11 in Washing!on-Street.
punifliments will be more or less ufeful, as
they are attended bv smaller or greater
marks of cruelty. With the nature of the
human mind they have been but little ac
quainted. The greatest effeCt is not pro
duced on this by the intenseness of the
pain, but by its continuance. Weak but
repeated impressions affeCl our sensibility
more powerfully than those impulses that
are violent but only of a momentary du
ration.—Not only have plans of savage
ness been devised for the puniflimenr of
criminals, but they have wrongly estima
ted the degrees of crimes, and the penal
ties which (llould be exaCted.
“ Punilhments should be made ufeful,”
andought always to becommenfurate with
the crimes for which they are inflicted.
The remedies made use of for the prohi
bition of criminal aCts fliould be folelv rat
ed by the injury they produce to an indi
vidual orfociety—therefore, crimes which
affeCt either of these in different degrees,
require to be differently puniflied. 1 wish
I could with justice fay that this maxim
was adhered to in this state. Here the
horfe-thief and the murderer are doomed
to undergo the fame punishment. Life
and property are deemed alike sacred. The
existence of a fellow-being is put in com
petition with the value of an animal whose
intrinsic worth may not be five pounds.
Shameful; and I had almost said unpar
donable disproportion !
It is a glaring faCt, that murders are
more frequently committed in this state
than perhaps any other in the Union, with
impunity, or rather without being follow
ed by an infliction of the punishment
which the law authorizes; while it is as
well known that the horfe-thief seldom es
capes the gallows. More exertions are in
general made to apprehend, and bring to
condign punishment the paltry scoundrel
who steals his neighbor’s horle, than the
base villain who facrifices the life of his
fellow-citizen from views of private inter
est or revenge.
It will not I think be difficult, and in
the couffe of these observations T fljalLat
tempt ro prove, that languinary punish
ments have not tended to lessen the num
ber of crimes in any country; hence their
institution is fruftrated, and others ought
to be substituted ; for it is the objeCt of a
punishment to prevent others from com
mitting the like offence—fuch therefore,
and such a mode of inflicting them should
be adopted as will make the most power
ful impreflion on the minds of others with
the leaf! torture to the body of the culprit.
With the humane and benevolent of
every nation it has long been a matter of
much importance that the severity of pun
ishments was seldom in proportion to the
guilt of the offender: thus a petty rafeal is
frequently sentenced to an ignominious
death for a trifling theft—a forgery of a
few pounds or (hillings, or some other
crime of an inconsiderable nature, while a
more knavifli one, after a fliort imprison
ment is set at liberty with an immense pro
perty, which he has swindled from thous
ands, again to commence his devastations
on the community.
In the primitive state of society men
lived without government and without
laws; and]they lived in a continual state of
warfare. Thedefpotifm—the natural love
of power, and the divided and opposite in
terests of each individual, influenced by
different passions, prevented them from en
joying peace and security in their natural
ly independent state : they united for mu
tual ease, fafety, and good ; and laws were
made the conditions of their union.
For the benefit of the whole, individu
als agreed to relinquish a portion of their
liberty. In this manner were social com
pacts formed. But it became indifpenfi*
bly. neceflary that fomethjng fliould be
done to prevent the infraction of those
laws which policy had dictated, and to pro
hibit individuals from plunging the society
into its original state of chaos and confu
fion. Such were made the objects of pun
ishments established against violators of
the laws; and the utility of these last is
fruftrated unless they are enforced by a
faithful and effectual execution of them.
The objeCt of punishments being, as I be
fore remarked, to prevent similar offences,
and to preserve order and security in socie
ty, those only should be adopted, that will
with most certainty produce the end desir
ed, with the least injury to the social bo
dy. Though it is the dictate not only of
humanity, but of prudence and wisdom
that there should be a ftriCt execution of
every criminal law; it need scarce be men
tioned, that fer every life that is taken a* ,
WED N E S D A Y, October q, 1799.
way,fociety becomes proportionally weak
ened ; neither has it been found from the
experience of pall ages, that those punish
ments which affeft life answer the wifil’d
for purpose. All the torments which have
been used as the inflruments of furious fa
naticifm, blind bigotry, or weak tyranny,
have not had the smallest effect in dimi
nishing the number of crimes. The
groans of nv.ferable wretches fuffering un
der the wheel or the rack, or surrounded
by burning faggots, neither recal the time
pad, annul the crimes they have commit
ted, or prevent their future commission.
Yet, strange it is, political bodies, as if de
lighted with the cries of tortured criminals,
have fanftioned those cruel afts: They
who ought to be cool examiners of reason
and nature —the calm moderators of the
passions of individuals have been apparent
ly influenced by a third for vengeance and
cruelty.
It seems to have been the dudy of na
tions, both ancient and modern, barba
rous as well as civilized, to excel each
other in the cruelty of their punifliments:
They have been made the fie plus ultrd of
the human mind. Rulers have almott ef
tablidied it as a science, and though the
consequences have been so oppoute to
those that were expe&ed, they dill have
been adopted and blindly followed forages
in contradiction to fails and experience.
It is painful to look over the pages of hif
tory, and behold the cruel invention for
the punifliment of different crimes; the
inventions rather of tyranny than of jus
tice; and it is doubly so when we discern
how frequently and how great has been
the disproportion of the one to the other.
Between crimes and punifliments there
ought to be a fixed and invariable pro
portion.
The Angle and double knout, boring
and cutting out the tongue; as praCtifed
in Russia not many years pad; the rack,
gibbet, and the halter, as used in more ci
vilized nations; the bow-dring, burning
and roading alive, impaling, crucifixion,
fawSwg the body afondrr after being placed
between two planks, and strangulation, as
used in savage or barbarous nations; toge
ther with the more modern mode of guil
lotining; and many, many others that be
come painful to enumerate, seem to have
racked the ingenuity of man in the inven
tion, while they have only lerved to aggra
vate the very evils they were intended to
prevent. Cruel punidiments are the pa
rents of slavery; and in every government
we fiud the genius of freedom depreffeJ in
proportion to the sanguinary spirit of the
laws. I will venture to assert that tyran
nical laws and fcvCre punidiments have
been the means of producing one half, ay
three fourths of the crimes which have
ever disgraced human nature; and a peo
ple accudomed to cruel punifliments be
come dadardlv and contemptible; for in
nations as well as individuals, cruelty is al
ways attended by cowardice.
I have endeavoured in the course of the
preceding remarks to prove, that sanguin
ary punifliment are inadequate for the pre
vention of crimes; but those who would
rather be led by authority than liden to
the mild voice of reason, or to her argu
ments, may perhaps, be convinced by fails
drawn from the experience of ages.
The laws which were framed by Draco
for the government of the Athenians, are
emphatically said to have been written in
blood ; and they produced an aggravation
of those very calamities they were intend
ed to obviate: These people exhibited the
greated and mod complicated feene of
misery, until they were relieved by the
wisdom and moderation of Solon. Per
haps no country has had a longer experi
ence than China* and it is there an exiding
observation, that in the fame ratio as the
punifliment of criminals increase, the em
pire progrefles to a new revolution. Rome
flourifhed under the Porcan law, which
prohibited any citizen from being tfxpofed
to a sentence of death; but it declined and
fell when severe punifliments were efla*
bliflied by the emperors.
From the times of our anceflors, let us
defeend to a more late period wherein the
superior efficacy of mild punifliments has
been amply witnefled. I allude to the hu
mane and benevolent alteration of the pe
nal code of Pennsylvania. In the firft four
years of the ameliorated system of punifli
ment, the number of criminals was dimi
nished nearly one half of what they were
in the fame space of time under the old
system. Os 594 criminals in this state
(Penn.) in four years, 521 were foreigners,
and of this number 221 were from Ireland.
Os 243 criminals in four years of the lad*
reformed code, 135 were 'foreigners* andU
92 were Irifli. Let it now be afleed why*!
does this small illand furnifh so large a 1
fliare of criminals? The answer is obvi- I
ous. Tyranny and bad government have 1
been the caules of three fourths of tlie 1
crimes that have ever been committed. J
Good laws, equal rights, humane inliitu- 1
tions,and mild punimments,with rigiddif- 1
cipline, will, 1 fondly hope, fupercede ere B
long the use of the gibbet, halter, and oth- It
er ignominious cruel punifhmcnts. Penn- |
lylvania is less troubled with crimes than §■
under the barbarous cullom of hanging ]
Fads are stubborn things, and those which i
I have just advanced serve to prove more
effectually than theoretical arguments, that
mild laws and moderate punifliments will jj
more certainly check the growth of crimes -
than severe or cruel ones. Hard labour
and dote confinement make a more pow
erful imprefiion on the mind, than those
puniflmients which last but for the mo
ment —the effects of which are so transito
ry, and so soon forgot by those who are jj
witnesses of their infliction. The idea of
a solitary imprisonment for life, or a loin*
term of years, secluded from all
and doomed to continual and hard labour, 1
is far more dreadful than hanging, guillo
tining, or any of those sanguinary puniih
ments which bad policy, tyranny, or des
potism have instituted. No man, upon
the least reflection, I will dare to fay,
would exchange the total and perpetual
loss of his liberty (which itfelf is a conti
nual death) in conjunction with hard la
bour, and the melancholy reflections of
solitude, for the greatest advantages he
could poflibly reap in consequence of a
crime. Perpetual slavery then, with the ’
attendants just mentioned, is fully fuffici*
ent to deter the most hardened and deter
mined : Much more I will add, than the
punishment of death. But, independent
of the inutility of this punifliment for tile
prohibition of crimes, the principles of
justice, reason, and humanity entirely for
bid it unless in one solitary case, and that
is where the existence of the criminal
might endanger the fafety of the state or
nation.
The mode of punifliment most fre
quently infliCled in the United States for
crimes of a capital nature, is hanging. It
is a trite observation that after a man is
hanged he is good for nothing. Punifh
nients that are invented for the good of so
ciety ought to be made ufeful to it,, and
they would become so if all criminals were
condemned to labour in close confinement
for their own support and for the benefit
of the state, and by obliging men to work,
you take the most certain step for making
them honest. Idleness is the cauftrof molt
of the dangerous evils which exist in soci
ety. It is the parent of almost every vice.
Labour of all kinds favours and promotes
the practice of virtue. The bridewells
and work-houses of all civilized countries
prove, that labour is not only a very se
vere, but the most benevolent of all pu
niftiments, as it is one of the best means of
reformation. We are informed by the be
nevolent Mr. Howard, in bis hiftory of
prisons and lazarettos, that in Holland it
is a vulgar expreflion, “ make men work,
and you will make them honest.” And
over the rasp and spin-house at Grceningcn
this sentiment is expressed by an excellent
motto.
“ Vitiorum fcmina-otium-labore exhaiiriemlurn.’*
In Ruflia for a long term of years during
the reign of Elizabeth and her successor
Catharine not one criminal was executed :
banishment to the cold, barren, inhospita
ble clime of Siberia was thefubftitute; there
they were doomed to toil, and from oppor
tunities to evil being wanting, they
became honest. By this humane a&crime3
were not increased in number and u those
who know the influence of idlenejs’vpon
the moral faculty it wiil not be a* fubjeft
of astonishment. The mind when ufeful
lyand a&ively employed becomes a source
for moral and rational improvement In
dustry conduces to health, wealth, prospe
rity, and preserves the mind free from
temptations which serve to eradicate the
principles of virtue that may before haver
been imbibed. I have wandered a little
from the fubjeCL In speaking of the good
effeCUof labor in the reformation of crim
inals, our own country will furnifli us with
a more recent example. The benevolent
state of Pennsylvania has offered us one
worthy of imitation, View the new gaol,
and behold the beneficial consequences |
which have flowed from the beneficient
inftuution, WitneL the salutary effeds Jj
[Half :n jhfa&nce. j
[Number 13.