Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1868-07-04
dEMPuES APPEAL
LAWS THAT HARM THE STATE
BLACK MAIL.

lions, hElu Wnere Inc EsOlle, uy Llell
3 Representatives, make the laws, and OF.
fences against the criminal code are tri.
able by juries, no penal enactment o
the Legislature is really LAW, E,at
does not express the convictions Of the
people as to the moral wrong and Grim
iuality Of the act denounced.
Offences cannot be created by law
They must already have become such il
the public estimation, and the law must
simply express the general conviction
or it will be dead letter. To this prin-
ciple there is no exception. The people
are not 10 be educated BY legislation
nor can that improve the public morals
That work is to be done by other agen-
cies,-and chiefly by the Press, the Pul.
Dit and the Bar, each Of which is either
a missionary Of the Truth, or does not
acknowledge its duty, and becomes an
emissary of the Devil, to mislead and
corrupt the people, snd blunt their moral
sense, and darken their faculty Of distin-
gushing the Right from the Wrong.
A dead law that stiIl stands on the
statuts-book, Is like dead limb Of a
tree,-not merely useless,-fOT nothing is
so in this world,-but harmful because it
has died of disease, and its decay and
death are in part those Of the tree itself
All useless laws are bad laws. They are
the fungi that grow out of the ulcers OF
the Commonwealth, or parasites upon it,
ike the mistleto, which hastens the
decay Of the oak, and thriyes by its IN
doing.
We are not quite sure that the worst
laws are not those which, running ahead
of the popular convictions, attempt to
punish as crimes acts that the general
public opinion does not regard as crimi-
nal. Whenever s law becomes obsolete
or a dead letter, or is admitted to be
against the general conviction or in ad-
vance OF it, it should be repealed be-
cause it cannot but be treated with con-
tempt and the general disregard Of one
law. which may practically be violated
with impunity, is contagious, and pro-
duces disregard Of others whose enforce
ment the elI-being Of society demands
We DO not speak now of such laws a.
endeavor to stamp upon innocent and
even laudable and patriotic acts the
character Of guilt,-such as an enact
ment that attempts to brand q struggle
for Independence by States or q Nation,
as treason and rebellion of the individ-
ual citizen. These cannot repeal the
convictions Of the Human race, or buy
the sanctions of history and pOsterity.
We have in our mind such laws as those
which declare killing in the duellO to be
murder, and class those who break them
as felOns aud the outlaws of society as
those which prohibit gaming, and a
score Of others that are either dead let
ters on the statute book, or only serve to
relieve the State Of the burthen of pay
ing respectable salaries to its officers of
justice, and to enable the police Of cities
to levy q tax and create q revenue by
compromising with the offenders.
Laws that have endeaYored to make
duelling dishonorable, by providing the
punishment Of death or the penitentiary
for him who kills another on what the
world persists in styling the field of
honor, never have been and never will
be enforced. The juries always acquit.
They are the judges Of the law, in the
highest sense, because, SIS we have said,
that alone is really a penal law, which
/ expresses the convictions of the people,
and this people each jury represents,
and acts upon those convictions. All
other laws, the People, by its juries, re-
peals, notwithstanding the utmost efforts
Of Judges to maintain them.
Legislators, whenever you cannot at
all enforce a penal law, repeal it. II no
one is punished for violating it, as is the
case with the law against prOfane swear
ing, it is useless, and also injurious, be-
cause the disregard of one law breeds
disregard Of all. II it is only OCCASION
ally and at rare intervals enforced,
against some poor devil who has no
friends or character or money to fee an
Advocate withal, there IS 50 much the
more reason for It's repeal, because to
acquit ten men and convict one, for the
same offence, is an Infamous Injustice TO
the one.
Laws that proceed upon DO philosoph-
ical principles, or any sound theory a5 to
the nature and essence and proportional
gravity of guilt, make the Codes Of every
nation iniquitOus. Such are those that
undertake to prevent the unlawful use
Of a thing, by prohibiting The posses
sion OF il, which is in 10 sense an
offence, any more than it is an offence
to possess those organs Of the body that
may be put to the uses Of vice or 7io-
Ience. Such is the law against carrying
c5ncealed weapons, which never has
been and never can be enforced, except
accidentally and IN isolated cases, and
which the best citizen will, without any
sense of wrong, disobey, If he has to tra-
verse the streets of Memphis Of a dark
night.
The foolish old English law which pun
ished as manslsughter the accidental and
uDintentional killiDgOf another, has long
since silently given up the ghost. But
the criminal code Of every State is still
full of absurdity and Injustice and there
fore it is that Jurors, bent on repeating
its Injustice, ars too often led astray by
ingenious counsel, and turn murderers
loose upon society. Thus they, in the
end, make laws which Justify or at least
excuse acts OF actual guilt, upon the con-
venient ground Of insanity, or other pri-
vate wrongs, such as that for which
Sickles murdered Barton Key. We do
not mean that where ones wife or sister
or daughter is seduced ard ruined, that
the Jury, the fact being conclusively
proven, ought not to acquit the slayer of
the villain who has done that which is of
darker guilt than murder itself; for it is
the settled public opinion and conviction,
and 80 it ought to be, that so great a
criminal deserves death and whether
this conviction is or is not enacted into
law, it is the law, and will some time get
itself enacted everywhere.
Ne,yarfl, aIass thAra ara unfsfst aonyfo.