New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1851-07-26
The Executions Yesterday.

One passing the City Prison before noon
Yesterday must have observed an unusual
assemblage on every side. Men and boys
had climbed upon the pedestals of the door
ways and endeavored to monopolize each
keyhoe and crevice, peering through them
with feverish anxiety, while others with
equal anxiety gazed downward from the
roofs of neighboring buildings. A tragedy
was performing within. 1t was the hanging
| of two men.
There is something most revolving In
this curiosity and demolalizing in its gratifi-
ton. 1t is impossible to see it manifested
and not rejoice that the law Row performs
| its awful ministrati0ns of death away from
the public sight. Yet the desire to see men
die is not wholly brutal. Were an animal
to be put to death few persons would wish
to behold the execution. What attracts to
the legal death of men, is, in the last anal
ysis, the shrOud of mystery that TO the I'M
Illuminated mind still wells the future and
filings a shudder of awe through the specta-
tors soul lie seeks to know with what
selfpossession and courage a human being
can, out OF the order of nature, be launched
acress that unknown gulf, beyond which he
discovers nothing but uncertainty and
dread. Therefore it is that the coarse and
uncultivated and those whose jaded sensi-
biities seek the intensest stimulus, strive to
be present at executions. 1t is a fearful
way in which they attest that they also be-
long to the family of men. They long to
see man confront death undaunted, care
less whether he is sustained by the hopes of
religion or the pride of defiant spirit,
though of the two they prefer the latter. 1t
is well that they are not gratified.
The two yesterday executed were both
young, one %, the other % One of them
was a negro. They were sailors, and their
crime, mutiny accompanied by murder, was
committed at sea. That they were guilty,
there could not be the slightest doubt. The
evidence on the trial proved it, and they
confessed it.
But looking little more nearly into the
case, it is far from certain that all the re-
sponsibilty of their deed should rest on
them alone For there is a prior response
bility, that of Society to the individual
How had that been discharged toward
them What Social Providence had guard
ed their childhood and youth? What be-
nignant influences unfolded the tender germs
Of manliness, reverence and kindness in
their hearts What watchful teachers
poured the light of truth and knowledge
upon their minds What congenial and
honorable spheres of employment, what
wholesome social relations were opened to
them as they grew to manhood? Or were
they left from the beginning to the In
huences and associations of vice, the gate
way to crime? We know not That was
not among the things proved before the
court. And yet it might well have been.
For no criminal is brought TO the bar Of
trial, but Society is brought there along
with him; and none is condemned, but So
ciety is condemned also Hereafter this
fact will be better appreciated than now.
We are not among those who deny the
right of Society TO take life. We admit
its right to DO whatever is needful and ex
pedient for the preservation of its own
order 1t has as good right to Kill as to
imprison, or to do ought else against the
offender For its first end is order, that
individuals NAV have freedom. And if the
killing of murderers or robbers is requisite
TO that end, they may as rightfully be killed
as shut up in JAIL This. let it be under
stood, is not admitting the right of punish
ment as such. There is no such right
There is the right and the duty of preserv-
ing social order, but right to inhict punish
ment, for the sake of punishment, right
OF. vindictive Justice, as it is called, exists
only among the dread phantasmagoria of
somber and shocking metaphysics. The
sole question then is, Whether legal killing
is necessary to the order of society, that is
to say, to the security of life
Here the burden of proof is not for those
who oppose the death penalty. 1t is not Tor
them to prove a negative. But it is for the
other party to demonstrate beyond dispute
that men must be hung or guiuotined, or
there is no safety for the lives Of citizens.