The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1861-07-06
FII g Cr,n,ln.1isy & rrs.ssn.

.sssH - CrinAinality q Treassn.
Many people apprehend that some Of our au-
hori6es, both military and civil, entertain
wholly inadequate conception Of the real nature
md hideons wickedness OF the crime OF treason.
But the truth Is, we are 80 unused to the ohence
IN this country, that We do not any OF us readily
estimate its atrocity. Like children that have
never seen serpent or we'll, and who are not
/ ware dhow poisonous the fangs Of the one or
how murderous the teeth of the other, we re-
nniire actual experience to teach US all the dan.
cer and evil Of the deed.
. The ancient nations, whose peace Was often at
lacked ir this manner, gave it q bad pre.emi-
nence oyer all other crimea They regard it me-
Only a she gravest of offences in its own nature,
but 40 displaying the vilest personal qualities on
the part Of the offender. 1t was for this reason
that it was punished-6rst, by indicting the sc.
vsrest penalties upon the criminal himself, and,
secondly, by branding his posterity forever.
person 20 corrupt as to be traitor, they said,
must transmit his qualities to his descendants -
Besides, he who plots to disturb nations tran
guilty, and to overthrow its constitution, com.
imits crime against posterity, and ought to suf-
fer in, his offspring. While humanity shudders
ct the severity Of the argument it is still useful
to recall it, in order to show the sense Of those
nations who have actually suffered from this
kind of malice.
By the Roman law the traitor was to be put
to the sword and his goods confscated to the
treasury. 'His sons" says the rescript, s'to
whom We grant life BY our special imperial elem
ency, Though they ought to perish by the pa
ternsl punishment, as il 10 to be feared that the
csi ue will break out in them as an hereditary
disease can receive nothing by succession from
any relative, or by testament from any person.
Let them be forever needy and destitute; let the
patemal infamy always accompany them; let
them attain to no honor of Offices; let them be
sordid in an unvarying poverty that death shall
be their solace and life their punishment" The
theory was that if they we're allowed to aceumu
late property their hereditary impulses would
turn il to some misuse. 1t was q crime even for
any one to supplicate the emperor in their be-
half tn ough the treason was not discovered
till after the death of the traitor, he might, tho
in his grave, be convicted of the offence, his
memory stgmatized, and his property taken
from his heirs. His blood was deemed vtiated
from the time he entertained the "accursed de.
sign The jurist Paulus tells US that such a
post Daorie. trial actually took place in the case
of Druncianus, q Roman senator, who was
found guilty and his estate con6scated.
TIE same feeling survived throughout the
Middle Ages. Dante, expressing the public sen
timent Of his time upon many points, and among
others upon this, summons all his imaginative
powers 10 describe the future doom Of traitors.
He prints them as suffering torments exqusitely
adapted to the nature Of their crime; some lay
upon couches of everlasting fire; some were
thrust into mire and filth, from which watchful
fends never allowed them to emerge; and below
all these, in the very depth Of hell, were the
cold hearted traitors, embedded in eternal ice,
frozen, yet experiencing the intensest anguish
- he lo,, <,e E,,rr-
land any more tender In all the works of the
English jurists treason is stated to be the great
est crime which human beings can commit Says
Lord Coke: "Peruse all our books, records and
histories, and you shall find principle in law,
rule In reason, and trial in experience, that
treason doth ever produce fatal aud final des
truction to the offender, and never attaneth to
the desired end two incidents inseparable
thereunto) And therefore let all men abandon
it a. the most poisonous bait Of the devil of hell
and follow the precept in holy Scripture fear
God, honor the king, and have no company with
the seditieus" 1t will be remembered that this
language is used by q stout hearted friend of
English liberty, who composed and carried thro'
Parliament, in the reign OF Charles one OF the
great charters of freedom--the petition of right.
He loved a well regulated liberty as ardertly as
he hated sediIion.
The common law punishment Of treason, go
terrible and apparently barbarous, punishment
originating in the Middle Ages and continuing
in substance upon the English statute book to
the present time, marks the adherence with
which this crime was viewed. Its penalties may
sleep, it is true, at the will Of the monarch but
they exist, and can at any moment be ap 1lied.
TRAITORS" says Coke, citing Scripture author.
ity, +" are.to be drawn to the place Of execution;
so was Joab. They are to he hung; SO was Big
thana, as stated in the book of Esther. They
are to be disembowelled; so was Judas Their
hearts are to be pierced while living; so with
Absalom. They are to he beheaded: so was
Sheba, the son of Bichri. The blood of their
posterIty is corr upted so that they cannot in
herit 81 it is written in the one hundred and
ninth Psalm Lee his children be fatherless and
his wife widow; let them be vagabonds and
beg: and in tie next generation, let his name
be blotted oul !"
The penaltieS for this crime, like those OF mos t
other crimes, are not, under the modifying in
huences of Christianity and civilizat on. SO ag.
erayated as the, were. Yet the enormity OF the
offence would seem to have increased With the
progress of society. In rude and barbarous
ages, when neatly every man, if not warrior,
went armed; when the state was either an op-
pressive, or ut hest an unstable and important
institutiou; when social relations were few and
simple; when there was little accumulated
property To be lost; little or no commerce to be
destroyed, and when domestic life possessed
none of that sanetity which now cleaves to the
home and heartistone-an assault upon the pub.
lie order and pclce was matter of compare
lively little Importance. All society was so in
secure t al an il vasion of il produced none of
the terrible con, eQuences which the same deed
would now do Not only are our communities
more numerous out they are less prepared for
defence asainstiuternal treachery; they embody
vast amounts OF wealth which breath of sedi-
ton may dissi pate; their relations of man to
man are more complicated and more vital, and
rupture of them consequently more destruc,
tive; and % excite a serious alarm now for their
tranquility is lar more pernicious than open war
upon them would have been some centuries ago
Treason produces ten thousand times the ruin,
the unhappncss, the terror, in England or the
United Stites, that it would in Egypt, or Tur-
key, or even Russia. OF what millions upou
millions oil wealth have not the southern traitors
occasioncd the loss; but who shall estimate the
degree Of their iniquity, when the precious lives
spent bv war and disease, when the breaking Of
fraternal ties, and when the ill-feelings eagen.
dered in once Fl ie ndly communities, shall be ia
ken into the account? The william who de
,nauds yonr purse or fires your honse commits a
dreadful individual wrong, but he is infinitely
less to be dreaded than the grander criminal
who overtnrns all the security Of social order,
and assails the very life of the state.
We caunot, nor is it desirable that we should,
visit this offence, the mschiefs of which are SO
greatly aggravat d, with the ferocity of punish.
ment formerly in vogue. We cannot, IN this
age, revive the old barbarous methods of CAPT
tai execution They have passed away with
their day. Bnt it is none the less important to
mark our sense o! the awful nature of the crime,
and of our utter detestation of the criminals
They should'ilot he treated as mere political of
Tenders, to be dismissed with gentle reprimand
They have made needless and wanton war on
the best of governments; they have arrested the
prosperity of the most peaceful Of societies;
they have caused the sacrifice of thousands OF
harmless and noble lives; and justice to the in
tegrity OF cur laws, to the instincts of the hui
man heart, to the future wel-beng of myriads
Of people, demands some signal exempliGcations
Of our estimate OF their malgnity.-[N Y. Eve.
Post. ~
ARRIVAL OF WiurwoRTh RIFLED CANNON
There can be no doubt that our government is
procuring the hes, class of rifed cannon that
,an be secured in Europe. Three steamers
which have arrived during the week have each
brought two of the Whitworth rifed cannons,