The Kansas herald of freedom., 1855-09-29
The Death Penalty.

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the experience of all bygone ages, that
determined men are never deferred from
the perpetration of crime By The consid-
Grafton that an ignominious death must
inevitably follow; nor by the spectacle of
a fellow being dangling by eneck from
gallows, by way of atonement for fell
ony precisely of the character which any
such desperate may himself be medita-
ting. This view of the subject has been
In a great measure acknowledg ged, at least
tacitly, by the substitution of pswate for
public executions, in our own and some
other States of the Union; while many
more of them have abolished the savage
system altogether
Is the punishment of death really just
or useful in any well governed State p
Has it ever been known to make evil dis
posed men better, or 10 improve the NOR
ais of society? On the contrary, does
not the slight value set upon human life
by the penal laws, furnish an apparent
example, an excuse, and a justification
for the assassin? If a government, all
strength, has right to wage war upon a
single defenseless, though guilty subject,
and to destroy his existence by superior
force, will not the resolved murderer ar
que that the right belongs to society, not
more in collective than in an individual
sense
Are not the feelings Of every civilized
and oh.icti,n oono,,rn;tx, Sbootad and
outraged ?-its moral sense blunted and
paralyzed, on every occasion of the in
Fiction of the death penalty upon a mall
efactor, however heinous his offense, and
however secretly the fatal blow be given?
The day and the hour at which the
doomed man is to be dragged forth from
his dark cell-the grave-clothes, the cof-
fin, the blind-folding, the binding of the
limbs with cords, the halter, the gibbet,
the DROP the agonizing strangulation-
pah ARE not the images of all this hor-
rible paraphernalia impressed upon the
mind of every man, woman and child,
during every hour of the day within
which such an exhibition of legalized
brutality is known to be in process? How
many thousands ask themselves and each
other-had this seemingly forlorn, help
less, deserted victim, wife or child, pa
rents or kindred, here or elsewhere? Had
he no friend in all this selfish and villain
Gus world of ours, who could plead,
trumpet-tongued, for the mere boon of
life, that he might breathe, though in a
living tomb, throughout the residue of
that brief span which the God of Nature
might vouchsafe to allot; instead of be-
ing crushed out of existence by violent
and cruel blow, in the midst of health.
manhood, and prematurely consigned, a
ghastly, strangled corpse, to the dark
ness of the cold oblivious grave!
But, although the idea that the hang
ing of man works no practical benefit
to the survivors, the custom is neverthe-
less cherished, in what is enormously
conceived to be in modified form. In
our view, however, this modification is
but an aggravation of, or modification
upon, the old mode of sufocating a GRIM
inal in the face and eyes of an assembled
world. No other reason for the inflic-
ton of death as punishment for crime,
is conceivable, than that it furnishes a
warning against the commission of of
fenses that may lead to like catastrophe.
Executions, then, if they must be. should
take place in the very midst of the multi
tude otherwise, how is the public, the
supposed aggrieved party, to be satisfae-
toriiy certified that the death warrant has
been duly fulfilled? Why not do it in
open day, so that all those '.just persons
who desire to behold such displays of the
vengeance of the law-and all others who
are emulous from any other motive, to
be present at the authorized slaughter ol
human being, may be accommodated
and gratihed. This would be more hon
orable to the State, and vastly more hu-
name, even, than sneaking behind the
dead walls of a prison yard, and there
by the help of posse of sherif's Off
GERS, a few deputized surgeons, and a
I-dozen ''invited guests committing the
legal butchery sscandum ortem.-BostO'
| Gazette.