The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1907-09-26


not let the thought of it worry US.
If it were law of nature'that up
on committing a murder or an in
famous assault the offender would
drop dead Immediately thereafter,
as a certain consequence, Just as
one must surely die if he shoots
himself in vital spot or takes
poison, then, indeed, might death
be to some extent of crime. But
under present conditions death by
punishment is no more imminent
to him who commits a murder or
assault than is his natural death.
1t he reflects at all, he expects to
escape. Even if caught he may
be able to hire astute lawyers and
go free through their efforts.
There is a still stronger force at
work to make death as a punish
ment extremely uncertain. At
the present age men are by nature
refined and averse to cruelty. So,
when a Juror, who, before he was
chosen, stated that he believed in
capital punishment, gets into the
jury after hearing the case and be-
gins to feel his awful responsibility,
he is loath to impose the death
penalty. AS fact, he does not
impose it in many cases where un-
der the letter of the law he is
bound to. Moreover, undue sym
palhy is often excited for the
criminal, and in many cases con-
viCtions are not secured at all. A
punishment less than death, such
as Imprisonment for life without
power of pardon, can be much
more easily enforced than the
death penalty, as the statistics of
the states that have abolished
capital punishment prove. The
death penalty is for this reason, if
no other, bound to go in time. 1t
will become dead letter because
Of the reluctance of men to en-
force it. And this reluctance will
strengthen as they come to have
better conceptions of the real
causes of crime.
No advocate Of capital punish
ment would today defend it on
the basis Of revenge. The sole
defense of it at this dav is that it
is a deterrent of crime. But the
deterrent argument is being
knocked away by hard facts, and
the advocates away by hard facts,
and the advocates of capital pun
ishment find themselves driven
back to the primeval theory of
bloody revenge. With most of
them this is really the instructive
basis of their belief in the gallows,
although they usually deny it..
But be their arguments and mo-
tives what they may, 1t is a con-
fession of weakness to say that
public security demands the death
of any member of society.
The above arguments show the
inexpediency of the death penalty
as means of protecting the state
and its peaceable citizens. To
those who believe, however, in
abstract right, there may be ad-
duced further argument.
Society has no moral right to
take human life. The state itself
would deny the right to any
organization within it, however
large, to take the life of its own
members in accordance with its
own rules. Then how can it be
supposed that adding enough other
persons to make a state gives to
this greater number that right to
kill which a lesser number cannot
claim? Mere numbers can never
make a wrong thing right.
By the death penalty society
violates one of the fundamental
natural laws by which it governs
the conduct of its individual mem.
bers, namely, the natural law
limiting the right of homicide in
self defense l may take man S
life only when l or another person
is attacked by him and in immin-
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