Southport telegraph. [volume] (Southport, W.T. [i.e. Kenosha, Wis.]) 1840-1850, 1847-10-13
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.
We are glad to see this question agitatcd in our
Territorial papers 1t is one which undoubtedly
will come up for discussion and decision in forming
State Constitution, and discussion among
the public prints only be productive of good.
The last Wisconsin Argus contains an article on
the subject on the side which we should expect the
Argus naturally to adopt--n favor of the death
penalty and against the abolition of capital punish
ment. &c
We desire that no doubt should exist as to our
position and course in the premises We are dis
tnctly and decidedly against the death penalty ard
in favor of its prohibition, either in the Constitution
or BY the Legislature, Immediately after its organ
cation.
There are but two reasons which can possibly
be urged the other side; the protection OF society
from the individual committing the crime, and the
warning and lesson it is supposed to convey to the
vicious at large.
So far as the first of these reasons is concerned
it cannot be denied that society is just i'll
the case OF that individual by perpetual confinement
it is by his death, that the argument in favor
of capital punishment, has in that reason no advan
tage over that in favor of Imprisonment.
As to the argument that lesson is conveyed to
society and warning TO the vicious by executions
no person acquainted with the constitution of the
human mind, will fail to perceive in a moment
not only how entirely powerless such executions
are for any good effect but how very powerful they
are in propagating the seeds of the very crimes
they are designed to correct
The conduct of men depends upon the peculiar
constitution of their minds and the vicious man
is not reclaimed by educating the sentiment which
originates vice in him, but by encouraging and elu-
eating its opposite If is to be cured of self
ishness, you must educate his bcncvolence if you
wish to cure society or any member of il, of dis
position to murder, you must encourage the devel,
oPement ofthose properties of the mind which are
opposite i'll their nature which lead to a knowledge
and recognition of the rights and duties of one to
another, and from which spring Affection bencyo-
lencc &c.
Hanging man has not the effect II there
were half the terror half the lesson in the gallows
that its advocates contend there is such a thing as
murder should long this have been unknown
but it is shown that where it is most used there it
is most needed. 1t acts and reacts The execu-
ton of one criminal awakens the slumberng seeds
Of vice in many minds, and produces fruit cores
ponding with the seed sown and in about the gen.
eral ratio of the harvest to the seed 1t is mere
exhibition of the brute force-the force of comb
ned strength against the individual The well ed.
ucated, the we'll disposed, the moral and virtuous
do not flock TO witness an execution, because there
is everything TO shock and nothing to CRAFTY minds
constituted. while the vicious and evil disposed
do hrong there, for the that there is every
thing to crafty and nothing to shock such minds
Instead of educating what little good there may be
in them, it educates the evil and from being little
villain, man comes to be a great villain, by this
mode of gaows education
Let us abolish this barbarous practice at once
and forever A barbarous age might have an ex-
cuse for toleratng it, but a proiessedly christian
cannot.
But there is one reason more satisfactory and
conclusive 10 us than all others Human judgment
being faibe should never decree that which if
wrong is irreparable No court or human tribunal,
passing sentence say that they are certainly
right. What right then where doubt may and
must always exist, have they to decree sentence
which it is immpossble TO remedy after being
carried into effect. Testimony the most conclusive,
has been proven by subsequent events TO be false,
and innocent men have lost their lives how can
any one say then, that any sentence of death is abb
solutey just. When men eansay we are inaIlible,
then, and not till then, can they claim the right TO
inhict the penalty of death. We go distinctly for
its abolition