The Portland daily press., 1869-02-26

Mr.. Reed said before proceeding IN d;sons
this subject, he desired to state as far os 7,
Was able, the exact position of the onestio,
which comes before this House tc-day.
In 1887, the Legislature of the State n
. Maine had under consideration the subject !
capital punishment. A select committe
composed of gentlemen of ability from bot
: Houses of the Legislature, reported, that h
their judgment, the abolition of capital pun
ishment was expedient, and supported tbei
conclusion as he thought, by course of rca
soning not to be resisted but the State Con
stitutiOn at that time was such that the
were unable to accomplish their purpose
The constitution declared that all offence
should be bailable except those which wer
capital; and the Supreme Court decided tha
ii murder ceased to be capital offence tn
circumstances they passed law, in terms al
most, II not quite identical with that which
we have now.
At the same time, the Committee reported
a resolve, which was submitted to the people
to change the Constitution in this way.-
"That all offences should be bailable except
those which at the time of the adoption OF
the Constitution were capital offences" thus
removing the difficulty which met them upon
the threshold of the subject, and lest it may
said the people did not understand it. he (Mr.
"Whereas, the Judges of the Supreme Ju-
dicial Court, have given it as their opinion. in
answer to question propounded to them by
| the Legislature, that if the punishment Of
death should be abolished by the Legislature.
the crimes of treason, murder and arson
would become bailable offences by the Con-
stitution, &C."
| The people of the State understood the
object OF that resolution, appreciated its pur-
| and fha ,or,d dua 4
a part of the Constitution of the State of
Maine; being Article ii, of the amendments.
| At the meeting of the next Legislature it
was deemed by all persons that the desired
object had been practically accomplished:
| and in the pressure of business no further
action was taken. For thirty years the Gov
ernors OF this State uniformly construed the
law one way, SO that, up to the present time,
with one single exception, capital punish
ment may be said to have been abolished in
this State. And now the question presents
| itself to-day in. this form: Shall we re-
establish capital punishment in the State of
| Maine?
In discussing the subject he should not be
| able to equal the theological learning of the
| gentleman from Gorham (Mr. BuzzelD. or
the didactic eloquence of his friend and col
league, (Mr. Morris) but he hoped to bring
forward some of those sound results OF hu-
i ludu IcdSOu WuiCu are QOC at all inconsistent
| with "the revealed will of God"
He objected to capital punishment because
| he did not think its character satisfactory or
| its results encouraging. He regarded it in
| the first place, as an inefficient punishment,
| He meant by this, that ii was penalty un-
certain of infiction. And yet certainty of
punishment is greater preventive of evil
than the severity of punishment. This prop
osition is so well settled as to need no dis
cussion. Why is the penalty uncertain of
| infiction? Simply because the tribunal that
| tries all these crimes is human tribunal !;
and the laws of the Old Testament may be
| as severe and imperative as possible, but the
human heart is kinder than all such enact
ments, and will be pltiful in all capital cases
| in all trials where a mans life is in peril.
And the history OF the whole world shows that
| Judges, juries and witnesses have shrunk from
beingp articipants in verdicts of guilty where
death may be the result; and we know in
| the history of our own State, of one convic-
ton which was the result of assurance that
the death penalty had beeL abolished in this
State. 1t will affect judges, juries, witnesses
| and informerS. No witness viii testify
| with that positiveness of statement, and with
the clearness of conviction which he really
has in his own mind, when he knows a mans
lie IS hanging on his words. Judges wilrnot
charge as they would ii they knew that the
man was to receive a punishment which
could be remitted if proved to be innocent
If the death penalty is re-established, he be-
| lieved duty would be imposed upon the
| prosecuting officers from which their hearts
| would shrink.
| What is the value of the punishment Of
de~Ah i',- isssH tcrrifficr OF mankind end
as preventive OF crime? He believed there
| Is no passion so weak that 1t cannot face
| DEATH But you do not hold up before the
/ mIIrdprQT the epffHj1,f3I of I,o15
| up only the chances of death, dependent up
Oh the thousand contingencies of detection,
tr1al and conviction. No murderer means or
l expecs TO be convicted. The question, there
fore, 5 not the terrifying influences OF the
| certainty of death but of the chances of
deatl. Men daily in the ordinary avocations
OF lie meet those chances without thought.
There are trades and occupations of such
character that mans life is unsafe in follow
| ing them. Do men shrink from them? Is
there any difficulty in filling vacant places in
such trades? No, there is not.
The powder mills of this country blow up
upon an average once in five years, and he
was assured by gentleman connected with
9he Oriental Powder Company in this State,
that whenever their mills blow up. almost
before the burned and mutiated bodies can
be removed, their Office is beseiged by men
who desire situations made vacant by the ac-
cident, and that without additional pay.
There were so many soldiers in the House
who had met the chances of death on various
fields, that he deemed it unnecessary to speak
of them. Sailors faced death on every vow
age with scant pay and too often under tile
power of brutal captains. But gentlemen
might say, bring it home to yourself. Hwould
you prefer death or imprisonment for life.n
he conteHded that this was not fair pro-
sentation of the matter. The question was
not what gentlemen sitting here with minds
at rest would say about it; but what a crimi-
nal filed with the disposition to murder-be-
ing in that abnormal state of which we can
have no coHception-would say about 1t, and
what he says facts and figures show.
Another objection he had to capital pun
ishment was that it is positively injurious to
society. Many confessions, false confessions,
have been wrung from men in the grasp Of
the law-by the fear of death-confessions
which not only imperil their own lives but
the lives of their innocent felo beings. In
the State of Vermont, State which keeps
capital punishment upon her statute books,
there occurred this case: Two brothers were
arrested charged with the ruurtiv. sf l-vrn-
Them with appsEent CERTAINTY as se se murder
ers. One OF the brothers who feared the
death that threatened him, reasoned with
himself: My brother can meet no worse fate
| if confess and escape. He confessed the
| crime with particulars, and Implicated his
| brother in the murder. The legislature of
Vermont passeda special statute Committing
| his sentence, ano his brother was ed out to
| execution, protesting his innocence to the
| last. and on that saffold when the haher was
| about his neck, ant he was about to pass an
| innocent man fromtime to eternity, the mur-
| dered man appeard. The pressure of the
death penalty on ttr man who confessed in
that case came very lear sending an innocent
| man beyond the possibility Of human repara-
tion. This case and more we know. There
are those that we donot know, nor shall we
ever be sure until he last geat day, how
many Just persons hive gone D their graves
innocent of the clim@ for whiQ they have
suffered.
Capital punishmentis injuriols to society
because the example isbad. Yotpropose by
your laws to teach the sanctity ofiuman hfe,
and yet you say to the people ofthis State
that under certain circumstances heir lives
are not sacred. In other words ya propose
to educate the public mind so thamen will
not kill, by declaring that you will kill.
In one sentence Of your statutes you demand
that the criminal should reverence he sane
tty of human life, and in the next WI show
your contempt for it. You demand of him
in the hot blood of hate a forbearanCe which
in the cold blood of deliberation youieclare
you will not grant, And so the awtr lesson
, of killing is read from your own statue book
and YOU give it its utmost sanction.
Another objection he urged agalnstcapltai
punishment, and he deemed it the stpnges
) of all. and that was, that the punlAment
once indicted is irrevocable. Ii mis- axe
m.da that mistake can never be reettied.
asoe, W;S s,o,lassue INF. Morris) thought taele