The Portland daily press., 1872-12-27
Capital Punishment.

To the Editor of the Press
Recently in the PRESS 1 noticed an arti-
Gle against capital punishment which deserves
the credit of originality in thatit departs from
the stereotyped humanitarianism of the past
forty years, which has more sickly sentiment
tally to shed over the interesting murderer
on trial or after sentence, than sympathy for
the widow and orphans of his victims.
You put the case where it belongs, on the
well-being of the community, and not on the
tastes or preferences of the murderer. This
argues a healthier tone of public morals, for it
! is high time that can lidates for the halter
should be given to understand that s'they have
no rights except to be hung" unlesslit appears
that it is on the whole for the interest of the
| innocent many that the murderer's life should
| be spared.
But, while like the candor and ability of
your article, mnst dissent from your two
main propositions. You deny ''that the abo-
lition of capital punishment is of piece with
general lax y in the administration Of erimi-
nal law and is the outgrowth of tendency to
accord impunity to crime'
Now, Mr. Editor, while I doubt not that
| you and others are honorable exceptions, 1
| think the experience of your readers will bear
| witness to my assertion that the general rule
is the other way.
Take the case of Thorn who was convicted
of brutal murder of an inoffensive fisher
man whose guest he was and whose only
fault was the possession of a wife whom
taJ Eor
sentenced to be hung, but was begged off by
the opponents of capital punishment.
Now mark the result. Have these men
been satisfied with saving Thorn's worthless
neck? Not at all. Has "the abandonment
OF the death penalty in his case proved to be
an act in the direction of a more uniform and
certain enforcement of the laws and their
penalties p THE reverse is the case"
| Year after year the old well-known oppo-
nents of capital punishment, with the editor
of the Gospel Banner at their head, besieced
executive after executive for Thorn's un-
| conditional pardon, but without success until
they had the good luck to happen upon an
anti-capital punishment Governor, who con-
trary to your theory, but in perfect consisten-
| cy with mine set him free.
| This action of the leading humanitarians
OF our State was SO conspicuously distasteful
to at least two prominent gentlemen of that
| persuasion, that they told me pardon the
closed their mouths forever on the subject of
capital punishment, because they were salts
| fled that the old accuse ton of the advocates
OF hanging was true, namely. that majority of
those who opposed hanging were also opposed
toimprisonment for life and to all penalties for
| crime.
must also beg leave respectfully to cues
| ton your assertion that the continuance of
the death penalty has tendency to produce
| acquittals of murderers.
My reason is, that our State and almost If
not quite all the others have different degrees
OF murder. of which only the first is punisha-
Bile capitally. What then prevents jurors of
murder in the second degree. if they really
| mean business?
Again, every lawyer knows that the pre-
siding judge always instructs the jury that
they are at liberty to convict prisoner on
trial for murder, either of murder or, of man
slaughter the penalty for which is nowhere
| capital, and may be even fine only.
Now, why do not our tender-toed Jurors
who shrink from stranguIatisn of murderers,
but are not in favor of ssthe existing system
of indiscriminate pardons and acquittals,"
convict 'sthe gentleman of homicidal tenden-
cles and conduct of manslaughter, so that
the judge may have an opportunity at least,
to make him pay the costs of the trial?
am sorry to be obliged to differ with you
SO far, Mr.. Editor, as to state as the result
ofmy observation that the mass of opponents
of capital punishment tend as naturally to-
| ward the abolition of imprisonment for life
and all long terms of punishment and toward
indiscriminate pardoning of murderers. as
the mass of the late Democratic party tended
toward slavery, and the mass of shareholders
| gravitated toward rebellion.
| Also, that the same class of jurors who have
conscientious scruples' about convicting of
capital crime, will be found too conscientious
to convict willingly of any crime.
And, finally, that the halter has and will
continue to have far more terrors to the knave
whether of the Harris, the Prof Webster, the
LEFT Davis, the Macmillan or the L. N. Bon
aparte stripe, than the threat of imprisonment
for life with Gospel Banners pledged to Sc
| cure pardon even from that.
| LAW AMI ORnER