The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1867-07-11
Uht Uribune.
SHOULD THERE BE PUNISHMENT FOR
CRIME?

Who will say nay? The inspired Wort
upon which, lawyers tell US all law i.
based, reiterates from beginning to end
the statement that the guilty shall suffel
punishment. We have laws on ou
statute books prescribing penalties fol
every crime known. Ifa poor girl steal.
ten dollars to keep her in6rm and aget
mother from starvation, she is remorse
lessly sent to prison to associate with ths
vile and disreputable for twelve-month
and comes out at last with name dis
honored; SO deeply stained, in fact, thai
nothing can ever remove the stigma where
she Is known. This is the penalty fol
stealing. Our statute books tell III
Trea violation Of allegiance''-is q
crime, and prescribe the penalty of death
We have never heard that this law was
unjust. We have never heard that ma
tions as general thing, have any other
regulation, and yet our Nation has es-
tablished precedent which must give
Infinite satisfaction through all ages to
those who are guilty of attempts to de-
stroy the govcrnments to which they owe
allegiance. Whichever way its laws may
read, its acts say, the poor girl who
steals to save from starvation shall be
punished to the full extent of the law. but
the man who murders his hundreds OF
thousands by the sword, by starvation,
by the introduction of pestilence and dis
ease, in fact by all the hellish instrument
talities which devilish ingenuity can con-
trive in order to destroy his government.
he shall be permitted to enjoy his liberty.
In place Of punishment he shall be placed
for short time in costly apartments, he
shall be allowed sum for his daily sub
sistence which would keep from starva-
tion hundred families, and finally with
great eclat he shall ride in glorious tri-
umph to his release from even SEM
blance Of punishment.
We lose patience with governmen,
that boasts the justness of its laws and
yet has not the moral courage to enforce
those laws. IF Treason is a crime why
not punish it regardless of what this OF
that one may say! If it is not crime.
change the laws of the land. Do not
punish the poor girl for her crime while
you let the proud, naughty, unrepentant
traitor and murder enjoy in peace his
ill-gotten booty. The New York Tribune
contains the following:
Would the Union be stronger in the
South if some Of the chiefs of the late
Rebellion had been promptly tried by
court-martial AM executed? We say
No; and we are sure that the voice OF
History is with U.s. -
We remember ole, Andrew johnson,
who but short time since cut up all
sorts OF antics ana all the while kept as
serting that ''the people are with me
History will place me on her brightest
page. ~ But when the people replied, il
was found he lied, and we are of the
opinion that History will forget to place
him on any page whatever, but that OBJ
livion will claim him as her own. So with
the writer of the extract quoted above, His
tory will show him-as in the past it ha.
shown-that crime always increases where
there is no punishment for it. Magma
nimity is noble quality, but that man
who allows the deadly viper the free range
of bis household is a fool, while he that
crushes it to death is saved from Its
fangs.