The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1883-05-10
Capital Punishment.
LAWRENCE Fee, OHIO,
ADri1 22 1899

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caused by the certainty of death is the
only thing that will operate to deter GER
tain bad people from committing murder.
There have been periods and states of so
ciety, and in other latitudeS of the globe
such may still be found in which it may
be necessary to infiict the death penalty,
but it does not occur to me that it would
be at all applicable to-the age and social
institutions in the midst of which we live.
In countries and in times in which the
science of the construction and discipline
of penitentiaries, which in ours has been
so highly cultivated, was almost or Who'll
ly unknown among savage tribes whose
modes of life. and rude and imperfect in
stitutions, afforded them no other means
of self protection against the repetition of
crime, but the interposition of the impas-
sable gulf of the grave between them
selves and the criminal, the reasoning of
this part of the argument would not be
without weight. Not only so, under
forms of government in the organization
of the social structure was such that the
great powers of wealth, of rank, and of
the sword--instead of being individually
distributed among the million, SO as, in
conflict of the wills and interests of the
two to make the aggregate society every
thing and the isolated unit nOthing-were
to be found concentrated, in dispropor-
tionate accumulations of power in the
hands of limited number-when the
great baron, the lord Of thousand hills,
blood stained and blood thirsty as he
might be, from the bristling battlements
feeble arm of the social justice of that
day-or if, by accident, surprised and
brought within its grasp-could summon
to his rescue vast influences both of
wealth to bribe, or of violence to force an
escape so as to render a perpetual or pro-
tracted imprisonment if not absolutely
impossible, at least a matter of extreme
difficulty and always of doubtful success.
To such cases, to such states of society,
this argument. conceding its abstract
soundness as based upon natural right
of self-defence on the part of the commu-
nifty could have an applicability not to be
claimed for it amid the glowing lights of
the nineteenth century in the great State
of Ohio.
You say that ut is better to have muir
der checked by law than by mob vio-
lence." We do not claim that it is moral
ly right to infiict the death penalty by
mob law or any other process. But why
is it not as near right morally speaking
for few masked men to go quietly about
it and hang criminal as for a select par
ty of well dressed gentlemen to assemble
at certain time and place and kill the
poor wretch according to law. He is just
as dead in the one instance as the other.
The mob. process of killing criminals has
certainly the advantage of being the
cheaper method of disposing of those
wayward unfortunate persons. Not only
so, in the first instance the entire commu-
nifty takes upon itself the responsibility
of taking the life of a fellow-man because
he has sinned against the law, whereas in
the second place the fearful deed rests
only with the few.
"The power over human life" says DIR.
Franklin, "is the sole prerogative of him
who gave it. Human laws therefore rise
in rebellion against this prerOgative when
they transfer it to other hands"
All civil governments originated in
families The father of family had
scendants, and an acquired right on ac-
count of the support and protection af-
forded them during their infancy and
childhood. And, by the alliance or union
of many families it became national. But
the stream cannot rise higher than the
fountain. If no father has the natural
right to inf1ict the punishment of death
follows that million of fathers would
have no right by themselves or their rep
to do it. We cannot dele
gate or grant to others right or power
which we never possessed. Therefore if
no one ever had the individual natural
right to infiict the death punishment for
crime he never could transmit such
that Notwithstanding that capital punish
ment is legal in our State it is a power
usurped only, and is but relict of bar
bariSm.
You claim that society has the right to
protect itself against criminals. We
grant that society has the right of self
protection-but this far and no farther.
The individual possesses the unquestion-
ed right, in self defense to take the life of
his assailant.
Granting the extension of this right to
society it is at least clear that the right
on the part of the latter is subject to the
same restrictions by which it is limited
as it exists in the hand of former-namely
the simple repulsion of the threatened
aggression. If man attacks you and
you can defend yourself only by killing
his life, but if when you strike him you
do not kill him but only stun him so as
to bring him within your power, then if
you 60 further and retaliate by plunging
a dagger to his heart you are at once
to the law as murderer.
In order to Justify society in doing the
same, it must be in the same situation of
not being. able to do otherwise. All that
can pass from the individual to society is
the right of infiicting the least measure of
punishment competent to the object of
prevention. When society has seized,
thrown prostrate, and disarmed that enc
my, it cannot rightfully, any more than
could the individual, go farther and claim
a more extended right,-a right of cruel
and barbarian vengeance. But society
goes farther than this. 1t is not till after
the crime which no human power can re-
pair or recall, that it seiZes the criminal
and puts him to death for the purpose as
you would say, of making San example"
of him and of holding his execution up in
view as terror to Others-a shocking
sort of experimenting on human nature
as it has well been termed, to kill one
man in order to reform or confirm the
habits of another-which in consequence
of one now irretrievable evil reproduces
the same in the person of It's author, seeks
to repreSs the indulgence of cruelty, by
cruelty not less ruthless and still more
deliberate, and can only deter from the
of human blood, by itself setting
the example of the very act it forbids.
Right here, Mr.. Editor, in comes anoth-
er copy of the STANDARD, in which | no.
tice an article over the signature of J. W.
Jackson. That is right, l will try to deal
out to you both mercifully in due season.
1 am aware that l have invaded cOntro
verted grounds, and that long settled and
deep seated prejudice is hard to remove.
While l shall use soft words and hard ar
guments, it will be well for you to re-
member that assertions unsupported by
evidence affect only him that utters them.
If you expect to deter evil doers by TAX
ing the life of Jackson in few days, why
not make the execution public? Why
does an execution in this State resemble
now rather private judicial assassina:=
tion which shrinks from the open view OF
the public. and perpetrates it's revolving
function only within the guarded pre-
of small number of official or privileged
spectatorsY The policy of the law on
that supposition ought rather to be to as
semble the whole people, old and young,
north and south, east and west, to witness