The Portland daily press., 1869-01-15

universe there is no other arrangement but
that they should be cast out of life.
You can then only mean that my notions
are inconsistent with phase and fashion of
Christianity, that ignores all the hard words
of its teachers, and also ignores all the sterner
aspects of history and all the evil agencies in
man and nature that hold good in check, and
shuts its eyes to the every where patent fact,
that not only life is constantly fed on death,
but that death and the misery of other crea-
lures is strangely mixed in all the substantial
well-being and comfort of human existence.
All you say of society's causing the crime it
punishes is true only in slight degree. Three
fourths if not nine-tenths of the evil that
ripens into crime is hereditary. The scrip
ture is still true: Every man, when he is
tempted, is drawn aside of his opn lust and
enticed.
You will almost always Il doubt if it be
ever otherwise) find the crime you punish in
the forefathers or toIemothsrs of the crimi-
nal. They may have lived plausible lives and
the evil capacity may not have had the temp
tation or occasion 10 develop itself, but it was
there. They may even have been Indifferent
as respects moral character, and the vicious
progeny may be due to some horrible
passion, drunkenness, dependency or lnsani-
ty, that eclipsed the usual character in the
critical period of parentage.
In the way of learning and applying these
laws Of life, of preventing the parentage of
hopelessly incapacitated persons, and OF
teaching all men the sacred responsibilities
attending the relations, out of which the gen
erations of men succeed each other, society
may do something to lessen the number of
persons capable of committing crimes. By
direct teaching and training of those persons
but little. Men must take their chance of
learning the current morality that pervades
society, the school, the church, the family,
and who shall say that here in New England
we have not been careful enough to provide
that, and liberal and impartial in the distribu-
tion of it?
But when drunkard in the intervals Of
delirium tremens cohabits with an idiot in
country poor-house, and the result is an in
choate murderer, say here is human exis-
tence that had no right to be. Here is an
individual, not called in by God or man to
share with us the goods of life, but who broke
an uninvited and unwelcome, by the crime
OF persons, who had no right to be the par
ents OF anybody. would give him the same
chance give my own child to learn such
virtue as can be got from Bible, spelling book,
and social fellowship with his kind but if he
developed into devil in spite of it all, l
would say with some rage: Out of this, in
terloper!
But if your view that society causes the
crime it Furnishes were true ,ohslly, it would
be only reason why it would be immoral to
punish men as sinners. I don't advocate
the right of executing the murderer because
ne is a sinner. As a sinner he forfeits his
life, so that were he overtaken immediately
afterwards by accidental death, every person
would feel instinctively that providential
justice had taken place. But no man is, nor
are all men, sufficiently exempt from sin, nay,
from the germs of the very sin, to punish the
crime as sin. When, however, the mur-
derer has forfeited his life by his crime, the
law may take it to prevent him from repeat
ing his crime and to deter others from the
same crime.
The thief steals again, the drunkard gets
drunk again. Half the adrot and desperate
pickpockets, burglars and forgers have al
ready served terms in prisons for these Of
'ences. Imprisonment does not cure men of
these crimes. Neither does it cure the crime
of murder. The murderer will kill again,
when the occasion and the provocation oc-
cur. Capital punishment is a summary pun
ishment; it effectually prevents one criminal
from repeating his crime. Nay, think that,
admitting that the spectacle of public exc
cution may excite in one or more abnormal
characters the cruel rage out OF which mur-
der grows, that upon the great mass of man
kind, that see it or become aware of 1t. it is a
fact which deepens the horror of crime and
strengthens the purpose of selfcontrol and
virtue. I am utterly at loss to understand
the human nature not affected in this latter
mode.
There is but one other suggestion in refer
ence to this subject that 1 wish to make
The law requiring years interval between
the conviction of a felon and his punishment
is law that can be justified by no sound
principle. 1t is one Of those clumsy artfces
by which thing that could not be effected
directly was sought to be done by indirectiop.
The believers in capital punishment would
not consent 20 have it abolished; the disbe-
levers in it effected this years legal reprieve,
expecting thereby to secure for every murder
er exemption from hanging. They believed
that in one year the sense of guilt and the
horror of crime would give place to pity and
forgiveness; and when, as in Harriss case,
they find the indignation OF the community
to outlast the year Of his grace, they grid at
the Governor and Council and hold them I'D
to execration, saying more of their hard
heartedness than they ever said of the mur-
derer's guilt.
1t is poor enough business to haul wretches
up, years after their conviction, and put them
to death. 1t is most unnatural and repul-
sive office. The fact is, the sense of the per-
sonal guilt of our fellow-sinners is, after all,
a rather transient sentiment. We clamored
to have Jefferson Davis hung in 1865. In
1869 we do not desire even to have him tried.
If Judas IscarIot should appear among rs,
laden with the remorse of nineteen centuries,
who would not pity and shelter hims
Is this an argument against the punish
ment of death? II so it is just as good a
one against all punishment. Punishment to
be eficacious should be prompt. do not
know why the natural passion of anger was
implanted in the human breast, unless to
stimulate one to defend himself against
wrong. do not know why the public indig-
nation at crime, which is the anger of men
in the aggregate, is so universal, unless to
impel society towards the early discovery
and prompt punishment of crime.
If it is said that the anger is indiscrimipate
and demands victim, / answer the palpaoie
fact is otherwise. There was wide spread
and deep horror at the crime Of Harris that
stimulated and rendered preternaturally
acute the inquisitiveness with which the
felon was ferreted out, but was in no way
preiudicial to the utter fairness of his trial.