The evening herald. [volume] (Shenandoah, Pa.) 1891-1966, 1893-06-05
THE DEATH PENALTY.
SOCIAL COMPACT THAT UNDERLlES
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

The Fundamental Law Of Man which Com
pels the State TO Take the Life Of one
who Has by His Own Hand Taken tho
Life Of fAnother-The Right 60 Take Life. |
There Is an Infinite amount Of loose |
thinking, speaking and writing about capi-
Gal crime and its punishment. We are
growing too much accustomed to hear mur-
der trials discussed as II they were contests
between prosecuting officers eager to en-
force the vengeance Of cruel and blood
thirsty state and the legal champions Of an
unfortunate prisoner seeking TO escape the
penalties Of an unrighteous law. That is a
false view Of the matter-utterly false
Reference is in order to the first prinoi-
pies on which society rests There are
some primary truths which it seems need
to be firmly reasserted.
There were natural laws long before any
human laws were enacted. They are ele-'
mental, and their justice is self evident.
Among these natural laws there is one that
stands surely first 1t is expressed in the
homely proverb, "Self preservation is the
FIRST law of nature" From this first law
of nature It followed that when men lived
without organized society and had no state
no written law, no courts and no regular
machinery Of justice, any man whose wife
OF daughter or son or brother or kinsman
of any sort was killed or injured, or whose
/ home was invaded by any kind Of violence,
| had the right of retaliation in his own
| hands. If any of his household were slain,
| he had the right to kill the slayer
This natural law rules everywhere today
outside the picket fence Of organized civ
ilization II would rule in the United
| States again and instantly II IL were dis
| tinctly proclaimed that laws and courts
had ceased 10 exist and that every man, wo-
man and child in the community had as
much protection as and no more than they
could provide for themselves. All the au-
thorities on law and justice that have ever
spoken or written from the time of Moses
down to the days of Recorder Smyth have
agreed upon this point, that the right Of
defensive and protective retaliation for in
Jury is a natural one conferred by the Gre
ator upon every man, and not to be taken
away from him unless an equivalent pro
lection be afforded by the state.
The state is the product of civilization,
but what is the state? The state is simply
a social compact, it Is contract between
every individual member Of it and the col
lective community. The individual agrees
to give up many of his individual rights.
Among them be agrees to give up the right
: to kill at sight the man who assails him or
} any OF his kindred and binds himself never
to kill, except when in his Judgment his
Q own life will be lost if he does not. The
individual agrees further not to kill at
sight the assassin or the violator of his
e wife or daughter, but instead to leave the
man who has thus irreparably injured him
e. TO the public justice of the state. But the
4 ,IA 30, H.
social contract. The state also agrees to dc
certain things in return for the surrender
D of individual rights.
e The state binds itself to give to the In.
= dividual citizen, through its laws and its
r courts, the same just satisfaction which he
would be clearly entitled to demand and
take if he lived in desert where no human
tribunal existed. The state says to him
''The right to kill the man who kills youl
% nearest and dearest ones is surrendered, but
s 1t is not lost. If your home is invaded youl
= hearthstone desecrated, your household
robbed of its inmates to fill premature anC
p bloody graves, the collective state will hold
him who does these things to the same ac
b countability to which you yourself could
e and would hold him if you lived In a STATE
d Of nature, in the full enjoyment Of YOU
natural rights"
The law which makes murder punlshaDli
with death is the logical outcome of thai
d compact between the state and the individ
ual citizen It Is idle to talk Of the state a
d having any malice to crafty or any ven
geance to eppease against such a man a
Almy, the murderer of Christie Warden il
II New Hampshire, or Harris in New York
Society collectively can not and does no
e seek the life of any man. But the state ha
o made a compact under which it is stipu
N lated that the natural right of private ven
geance shall not be exercised, yet by tha
same compact it has guaranteed TO protec
e every household within its borders from al
is such invasions and violations and to do
bv placing every man in the cOmmunit
under bond not to kill, with the penalt
attached to the bond that If he will not le
ID another live neither shall he live himself
We may theorize, and speculate, an
ST split legal hairs, and raise moral bubble
NJ from now to the crack of doom, but W
.o never can get away from the basic laws G
~, human nature. Men will never surrende
"a their natural right to defend their lives
,e their homes, their wives and their childre
10 against the assassin by killing him an
.g longer than the state fulflls its duty t
No hold murderers to the same eXpiatiO
which, If there were no laws and no courts
they would certainly be held by thos
whom they wronged, and they never ough
& to surrender Thames w. Clarke in Nel
k York Recorder.