New-York tribune., 1869-01-22
JUDICIAL KILLING.

We give elsewhere o full abstract OF the
solid and Gble summary of reasons for
abolishing Capital Punishment, published in
Putuam's Magasine for February. We hope
our present Legislature, and the people and
nress generally throughout this State at least,
will promptly give this matter the attention it
deserves, by striking from the statute-bOok
this lingering relic Of barbarism-the cool and
deliberate killing of criminals by officers OF the
law. The custom has its rise in the same low
estimate Of tho value of human LIE which
constitutes savagery itself as distinguished
from civilization. We must not lose sight of
the fact that Legislatures, Courts, and Sheriifs,
do not create justice; they only make law.
Eternal Justice, always mightier than the law
denies that those who are pOwerless to confer
life shall take it away, or that any combination
of men, or forms tpchniOalities of statutes,
or elections or human warrants, can confer on
one man, though he be styled a Sheriff, the
right TO take the life of another, whatever may
have been his crime 1t is still brother against
brother-Can against Abel--whatever judicial
forms precede the murder.
In the earlier and rude stages of society
there was a strong argument for taking human
life for great ofienses, because society was too
weak to restrain its criminals. Its lack OF
prisons. or of the means 10 make them eth-
cient compelled 1t either TO slaughter its
prisoners or to enslave them. But we have
such ample provisions for securing and reform
ing criminals that it is wholly unnecessary to
kill them. If we compare with our present
state the lack of prisons, jails, and the means
of taking care of prisoners in the nomadlc
life of the ancient Jews, we must perceive
that Capital Punishment, while necessary for
the defense of society then, is ruthless and
useless sacrifice of life now. The world has 80
outgrown the notion that punishment has some
merit or excellence in itself which demands Its
infiction, without regard to its utility, or that
Justice, when violated by the taking or one
life, can in some mysterious way be vlndlcated
by taking another, that it seems like recogniz-
ing the Inqusition as an existing evil to argue
against such phantasies. The wounds Of JUS
tice only bleed afresh when stanched with the
blood of those who infct them.
Judicial Killing tends directly and only TO
increase murder by individuals. Abolish the
gallows, and the most depraved are taught
new lesson Of the sacredness of life. Two CEN
turies ago, In England 1874 crimes, says Black
stone, were punished with death. Now, we
pSl.Y'N v"f thiSg; WuVn sVCiVty a' iHiBo
held its lives SO cheap. could individuals hold
them dearf Shall part be greater than the
whole When society collectively holds the
taking of life for injuries against it to be a
religious duty, will society Individually hold
tho taking of life for individual injuries a
bestial crimef When England held life to be
fifty times rs cheap as now, Englishmen COM
mitted fifty times as many murders.
The abolition Of Capital Punishment In Maine
Michigan, Rhode Island, and Minnesota, has
not made violent crimes moro frequent there,
but less. In Arkansas or Texas, where Judge
Lynch cannot even wait for lawful court and
jury, but hangs his supposed culprit at the first
tree, there are still twenty murders to one
hanging. However Society may make haste TO
shed blood, individuals viii outstrip il in tho
race. Not 80 much for the sake of the crimi-
nal as for that of Society, TO increase the
horror of man-kiliing, to make sacred from
violence the mysterious incarnation of God in
man which every human form embodies, to
educate our children in the faith that not even
the horns Of the Altar Of Refuge were ever so
sacred In the sight of God as the fugitive life
that Clung TO them, let us away with the death
penalty. Let it follow after the stake, the
rack, the wheel; after tho chain-gang, the
slaye-pen, aud the auction block; after the
burnings, orgies, and tortures of the American
Savage and let our children read of it with "a
shudder as one Of the ghastly, ghOulish horrors
which went out with Slavery. o. ,fsrsa a.
D.. sH