New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1871-05-10
ENFORCEMENT oP LAW.

l
! ENFORCEMENT OF LAW.
There is an absurd rumor afoat, thai
Governor Warmoth was chiefly induced
to make the little trip upon which he
started on Friday evening to avoid the
opportunities which would otherwise be
| showered upon him to save the lives OF
| the wretched men whom the law consigns
| to death id less than week from this
| time.
Both the friends and enemies of Gov
ernor Warmoth ought to know by this
time that he never turns his back upon a
difficulty. He faces, and, come what
will, masters it. The rumor to which we
allude is, however, worthy of notice, as
indicating morbid tendency of the pub
lie mind in matter which should be, pre-
eminently, a subject of healthy thought
and sound judgment. The execution of
the law should not be a matter of senti-
mental feeling, but of regard to the bene-
fit of the public at large; and no
man is fit to be the governor of State if
he is soft-hearted and soft-headed enough
to suffer mawkish feeling of sensibility
or humanity to usurp the painful, though
stern requirements of justice. 1t is in the
nature of the administration of criminal
law that the executive position should be
unpleasant, but that ought not for a mo-
ment to stand in the way of its efficient
administration, so efficient, indeed, that
a check to crime will become the result.
1t is an ungracious Office to advocate
for blood, but we can not resist the con-
clusion that the public journalist would
be recreant to his high Office should he do
otherwise than advocate the uncompro-
missing execution of all laws which pun
ish crime, for only by this can crime be
prevented.
1t was in Difference to the feeling
against infiicting the death penalty that
the Legislature of this State some years
ago so modified the criminal law as to
leave the punishment by death in the
hands of the jury, who, as the law now
stands, have it in their power to SO far
the punishment that deprives a
human being of his life by substituting
perpetual imprisonment. There is no
doubt at all that whenever there is the
slightest circumstance in favor of per-
son on trial for his life the jury will give
the accused the full benefit of the anevi-
ating circumstance; and it is equally |
evident that when jury has, after full
and fair trial, impartially weighed the
evidence, and as result pronounced a
verdict of guilty, the prisoner at the bar
mas fully earned the consequence that fol-
ows the verdict
1t is but a few days ago that two
strong, healthy, stalwart men, abundantly
lble to earn competence by honest in
iustry, in community where labor is in
demand and fairly paid, chose to sub
titute murder for industry, and put to
ieath helpless woman old enough to be
he grandmother of either of them. Who
loes not know that should these men be
and sentenced to undergo the
penalty of their atrocious crime, that
nawkish sensibility will again resume its
york, and endeavor to obtain a mitiga-
ion of punishment, and on what ground?
Sudden passion? What
an be said in extenuation of their crime.
kept that the victim was SO old and had
o few years of life remaining that her
cath was of no consequence. Will this
e the plea?
Let us while we consider the prisoner at
he bar or in the condemned cell, about
D expiate crime by violent death, let
S, amid our pity for him, consider the
ictim of his crime, hid away in the grave,
sent to his account with all his imper-
'ctions on his head" the wife widowed,
lie children orphaned Should not these
lings enter into our reflections, and |
lould we not conclude that the mawkish
which extends indiscriminating
ercy is cruel to society at large?