The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-03-23

too latei Fer this reason no irremedial
penalty should ever be inflicted. Life can
not be given, 1t should not be taken. 1t
| is iilviolable.
Sixth-In states and countries where
the death penalty has been done away
murder has decreased. Lynchings are
more frequent where capital punishment
as penalty prevails.
Seventh-Since this penalty is repug-
nant and degrading when inflicted on
male criminals, how much more shocking
and brutalizing is it when women and
minors are the victims
Eighth-lt is now regarded that muir
derers are insane or become insane be-
! fore they are executed Yet no one can
be FOUND to advocate the infection OF
| the death penalty on insane people who
commit murder. Why then put TO death
| murderer who becomes insane?
| Ninth-By far the vaster majority of
! people shudder at the thought of being
executoners and protest their unwilling
ness that relat We or friend o. theirs snou d
engage in such an undertaking. Cult
| waited and refined people, not even those
who advocate the penalty, are willing
to inflict it. The service is invariably
rendered by those of Intellectual and
ethical inferiority.
| TESTIMONIES AGAINST THE DEATH
PENALTY.
! It is said to believe that much of the
! prejudice in favor of the gallows may
be traced to three diScreditable sources;
does not properly belong to man, sec
ondly. unworthy timidity, as if a power
full civilized community would be in
peril If life We're not sometimes taken
by the government; and thirdly, blind
obedience to the tradition of another age.
Charles Summer
1 shall ask for the abolition of capt.
tai punishment until | have the infal-
libility of human judgment demonstrated
to me-Lafayette.
In every country in Europe. the aboli-
ton of the death penalty and the sub
stitution of miider penalties for the pun
ishment of crime has been followed by
diminution of such offences and in
creased convictions in proper cases
General @. N. CurtA.
My objections to capital punishment
may be summed up in few words. They
are:
First hate revenge. If | am revenge
ful l hate myself for being so. Vengeance
is a barbarous, cruel and malignant pas
sion, which l could not teach my chill
dfen nor any children. The gallowS does
teach Railways did teach it-always Will
teach it. 1t is not Christianity, as | have
learned thai religion. L revere the cross
and detest barbarism.
Second-I dread human fallibllty. our
Savior is by no means a solitary example
of the unjust execution of the innocent
and just. We have recorded instances OF
innocent men convicted of murder on
Their own confeSsion-Of men convicted,
convicted and hung for offenses whereof
they were in nowise guilty. SO long as
man is liable TO error, 1 would have him
reserve the possibility of correcting ms
mistake and redressing the wrong.
Third would affirm and inculcate as
widely and impressively as possible the
/ Sanctity of human life-Horace Greely
That this punishment has come down
to us from the earliest period OF time,
that it has been sanctioned by the Grim
inal codes of all races and nations OF
men. is no Just reason for its continuance
in the polity of a free and enlightened
state-General G.. n. Curtis.
You cannot advance with the New les
lament in one hand and a sanguinaTy
code in the other.-Basil Montague.
Its adjustment will be hereafter looked
upon as evidence of the moral character
of nations. as they successfully shall
blot ii from their criminal codes.-Nlce-
President Dallas.
/ have been about thirty years In the
n,:-istrv. and | have never yet discov-
cred that the founder of Christianity has
delegated to man any right to take away
the life of his ow-men-tather
Mathew.
tiers persons from taking life in very rare
and peculiar cases only, if in any, and
the greater certainty of conviction and
punishment. when imprisonment is sub
stituted, fully counterbalances any bene-
fit that can come from fear.-Judge
Cooley.
The state teaches men to kill. If you
destroy the gallows you carry one of the
strong outposts of the devn.-Theodore
Parker.
we have no right to shed criminals
blood because he has shed the blood of
another man. We have no right in rea-
son to do this, we have no warrant from
religion.-Lord Brougham.
The growing objections 10 capital pun
ishment and the positive refusal of jur-
ors to convict in many instances warn
us that some other remedy ought to be
tried.-Cassius NJ. Clay.
AS l regard it, the second murder is
worse than the first; for the first may
have been attended with extenuating cir
cumstances-not so the second.-Alice
Carey.
The real security for human life is
found in a reverence for Ct If the law
regarded it as inviolabe; then the peo-
pie would begin also so to regard 1T. A
deep reverence for human life is worth
more than a thousand executions in the
prevention of murder, and is in fact,
the great security for human life.-John
Bright.
If the individual man can defend him
self without taking life, he is bound to
do so; and this is the limitation imposed
by natural law and reason upon the state.
Charles Sumner
While the fear of hanging does not
deter men from crime. the fear of in
f1icting death deters many jury from
finding q just verdict, and favors the
escape of criminals.-Henry Ward
Beecher.
If the legislator be DESTROYS to inspire
humanity among the citizens let him set
the example; let him show the utmost re-
spect not only for the life of man, but
for every circumstance by which the
sensibility can be infiuenced.-Jeremy
Bentham.
The more closely we examine the eff
fects of the different criminal codes in
Europe, the more proofs we shall find
TO confirm this great truth that the
source of all human corruption lies in
the impunity of the criminal not in the
moderation of punishment-Wil
Bradford
Capital punishment is injurious to So
ciety because the example is bad You
propose by your laws to teach the sane
tIty OF human life and yet you say to
the people of this state that under GER
tain circumstances their lives are not
sacred. In other words. you propose to
educate the public mind so that men
VIII not Kill by declaring that YOU will
kill. In one sentence of your statute YOU
demand that the criminal shall reverence
the Sanetity of human life and in the
next you show your contempt for it, You
demand of him in the hot blood of hate
a forebearance which in the cold-blood
of deliberation you declare you will not
grant; and so the awful lesson of killing
is read from your own statute book and
You give it its utmost sanctity-Thomas
B. Reed.
In view of the arguments and testi-
monies against the death penalty, it ap-
pears to those who favor its abolition in
comprehensive that men still advocate
it vehemently and it certainly seems IN
consistent that a believer in Christian
ity should advocate the gospel and the
galiow as remedial agencies of civilized
lie. A. B. 7.
Salt Lake City, March %, 1896.
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