Sentence:  As one reads history—not in the expurgated editions written for schoolboys and passmen, but in the original authorities of each time—one is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; "and a <WSD>community</WSD> is infinitely more brutalized by the habitual employment of punishment, than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime." 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A group sharing a common understanding, and often the same language, law, manners, and/or tradition.