Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1875-02-11

purchasing by the State of Maine Reports an act
additional to chap. 2jS Of the public laws Of "a
relating to the taxation of railroad companies
resolve for the relics Of Francis A. Reed and Ed
win A. Reed, and the estate Of Mrs. r. Hersey.
PAssYD TO BE ENGRossEp.
Resolve in favor ofcertain towns and plantations
resolve in favor Of James T. Farmer ct ais; an
act to amend sec. 3 of chap. IL of the revised
statutes relating to the abolshing of school dis
ricts an act to amend sec. of chap. SO of the re-
vised statutes relating to marriage and its solemn
zation; resolve in favor of Fernando F. Smith
and Louis {. Smith; resolve in favor of Louis c.
Coffin; resolve in favor of Sumner p Bradford;
resolve IN favor of the Passamaquoddy Indians;
resolve in favor of Richard d. Porter; resolve in
favor of David l.. Kelley; resolve in favor of
Shepherd Higgins; resolve in faver of Amos P.
Cook resolve in favor Of completing the road from
Lewiston to IIamln Plantation; resolve in favor
of Eli Goss of Portland; resolve in aid of repair
ing the road from Abbot to Greenvile, in the coun
ty of Piscataquls; resolve granting pension to
Chas. w. Owen; resolve making appropriation
for the Penobsco tribe of Indians; resolve in favor
of the Military and Naval Asylum at Bath.
PASSED TO BE ENACTED.
An act to amend section twenty-five, of
chapter twenty-four of the revised statutes,
| in relation to paupers; an act relating to
the settlement of persons connected with the Ma
tional Home for Disabled Soldiers and Sailors in
| the county of kennebec; an act to incorporate
the Mystic Tie Lodge, No I, knights of Pythias,
of stolen bonds; an act to amend sec. 3, chapter
l9S OF the public laws of a. relating to the dis
| closures of poor debtors; an act to incorporate
the Onion Slate Co.; an act to amend sec. u, of
chap. of the revised statutes, relating to high
way surveyors; an act to incorporate the North
Windham Manufacturing Co.
On motion of MIR. SNOW, the report OF the
| Committee on Educston,t reporting adversely on
granting aid to the Industrial School for Girls
| was taken from the table and recommitted,
The bill to abolish capital punishment was taken
up and read tw;cs and under suspension of the
| rules the House proceeded to its consideration.
Mr.. TEFFr moved the following amendment, as
| a substitute;
Sec. l. The death penalty for the punishment
CT crime IS hereby abolished and all laws ilc IN
sstent with this act are hereby repealed;
See. 2. Grimes heretofore punished By death,
shall be punished by Imprisonment for life at hard
labor with without solitary confinement as the
court may direct.
Sec 3. Any person committing a crime row
punished by death while under sentence of impris
onment for life shall thereafter be held IN solitary
confinement until his decease he shall have the
benefit of no aeviation Of the aeverest rigors of
such close confinement; he shall not be permitted
to see nor to converse with any human being not
officer Of the prison; and it shall be unlawful
for any person to hold out to him Of suggest the
possibility of pardon.
Sec 4. This act shall take effect from the date
Of lis approval.
Mr.. TEFr took the floor and proceeded TO atlyo-
cate the abolition of the death penalty. The tight
to take life iudcially, must stand if at all, upon
the following foundations: first, long usage ;
secondly. on Revelation; thirdly, on nature. lie
argued then that it could not stand upon the first
foundation, because that would justify all the
crimes in the world; it would Justify slavery, pr
rdcy, and great many other crimes. Such ba
sis would continue al of the wrongs Of the past.
He then took up the next ground and one upon
which the friends of capital punishment founded
their belief. The Mosaic law is quoted by III This
| he commended, proved too much; if we TO hang
| man for murder according to that law, we must
| swallow the whoa code, which makes "a offences
punishable with death. There wa; reason Tor
| those laws in those times. They were made for q
| peculiar people, but that time has gone BY, and
| there is 70 place for them now. la referring 10
| Cain, he denied that God threatened capital pun
| ishnen. upon Gains murderer. He said that upon
| any man that should kill Cain he should intlict
seven fold the punishment Of that murder. 1t did
| not mean capital punishment, because man could
| not be killed seven times. 1t means that He
| threatened punishment seven times more severe
| than death.
| The covenant betSee God and Noah had been
| referred to and the law given whose sheddeth
| mans blood by man shall his blood be shed, for
| in the image OF God made he man" He contend
| ed tilst the word whose should have been what
ever, and that that passage did not refer to man.
| but TO ANIMALS. lie then shew the liability to
| mistake il translitng the Hebrew language, for
| it did not contain vowels. Until the flood, by
| Gods commands, the people were allowed to eat
in his covenant with Noah, the right to ca. Of the
| beasts of the field was given and for the reason
that beasts were found to be inimcal to man-they
! probably were net in the days of Adam; they
| were very friendly then. Passing from the old
to the new testament, he brought to mind the case
| of Jesus and the adulteress. Adultery by the
| Mosaic. code was punishable with death; yet
| Christ did not condemn her neither did he excuse
the SIM But told her to go and sin no more
Passing to the third ground, he denied the pro-
| position laid down that human society is matter
of individual compact, and that we have agreed to
surrender any of our individual rights. Human So
ciety did not start by compact and it has not been
| kept up by compact. Human society IS as nat
| ural production as a tree. If there never was
| any such compact there never could have been
any such agreement, that "if they would let me in
| to society they might take my life under certain
circum stances" Human society has right to ex-
| list. But he denied that it had the right of self
! determination. The individual has the right TO
exist but he has no right to destroy his own life
| Therefore he had no right to say that society
| might take his life, under certain conditions. lie
| knew it was said that society has right to defend
itself lie admitted that society had right to de-
fend its existence against attacks, national and in
dividual 1t had right to defend itself SO far as
necessary, and no further. And it was on this
| ground that he opposed capital punishment. We
have no right to extermnate nation that at
tacks us nor have the right to take the life Of
a murderer when we have got him safe in our
| power. That he contended, was the law of cNili-
! cation.
lie did not question but that society had the
| right to punish to certain extent. But we have
| no right to inflict an excessive punishment. We
have no right to send person to what many of us
believe to be punishment that will last forever
| Society has no right to make that demand upon
soul that goes into eternity, to sufer in the way
| that Orthodox Christians believe. Give him the
natural right to live, and if God says he shall CO.
then he takes the responsibility upon himself. But
so long as he Tefi was sinful man, he would new
raise a hand nor cast vote that should take one
minutes time from the probation of a man, and
send him to Judgment before he has had his last
| hour and his last minute and were he sheriff
called upon to hang Wagner, or hang the meanest
and vilest criminal that ever lived, he woudre-
sign before he would do it.
Mr.. WuEELwRIGHT replied, and opposed the
bill. lie disclamcd that those in favor of capital
punishment, claimed it as right on account OF
| usage. In regard to the offences punished BY
| death, by the Mosaic code, he said that no one
would give heed to them, or attempt to say that
| they are binding upon us. In the case Of CAIN
he maintained that the crime committed there was
not premedtated, but would come under the head
| of manslaughter, a case not in the category OF Of
fences punishable by death. Cain feared death
beyond everything else, Notwithstanding it is as
| l. Na,tt, late c.o,