“ Besides, it is not the intenseness of punishment that most influences our mind; it is the continued impression that fixes itself most indelibly on our thoughts. The dreadful but passing spectacle of death, has little effect upon our ideas: its greatness does not make up for the ease with which we accustom ourselves to dismiss all painful sensations from our memory. Besides, such is the nature of man, that he is capable for a short time of resisting pain to an astonishing degree, whatever be its intenseness, so that the people around have little idea what he suffers. ”

“ Helena, who once held the destinies of Europe, apparently in his hand, but lost them by his want of faith and political justice—when sacrificing all to his power, when treading upon all that binds man to virtue in his career, he did not think that those steps would prove at last the stumbling blocks in his way. And is there any difference in external and internal politics?—No; justice is the surest and most glorious path for all to tread in, and no less becomes a king in the triumphal car of victory, than on the bench of justice. ”

“ No one will deny that punishment is necessary, but is it necessary that the punishment should breathe a spirit worse than the crime itself? Is it necessary that society should have murder on murder arranged in formidable array against it, for the smaller crimes of individuals of robbery and swindling? ”

“ Not only are all the punishments awarded by the letter of the law, coming under the title of crown pleas, excessive, but even if we compare them with those awarded in civil cases, where, according to the arbitrary division of lawyers, the injury only affects individuals, we shall find them not only unjust but even ridiculous. To thieve from the person a few shillings is a crime, which by our laws nothing can expiate but the death of the guilty. Yet to set fire to a field of ripe corn is but a misdemeanour entailing some petty punishment. ”

“ A subject which every one, who is in the habit of reading our daily papers, must perceive requires strong attention and gradual reform. The multiplicity of crimes, the great number of those yearly condemned to death, the great number of cases in which both judges and jury are obliged to use modifying powers, certainly point out the existence of some radical error in the very foundation of our criminal laws.
In the last century, the relation of punishment and crime drew the attention of many: many authors have written upon it, and some princes have put in execution the ideas of philosophers. ”

“ If it is our wish to make vice shrink and virtue flourish, let us show we pay some attention to honesty; let us not punish various degrees of vice with equal infliction,—let us appreciate what little virtue there is even in the wretch amenable to our laws.
If reasoning has no power over our minds, let us at least be guided by experience; and has not the experience of ages shown us the insufficiency of capital punishments? ”

“ For though, without doubt, England is the nation the most fortunate in its domestic government; though, owing to the wisdom and continued perseverance of our ancestors in the cause of liberty, we may boast of a constitution perhaps as nearly approaching to perfection, as human powers allow; still we must not wonder, that some things have been left by our ancestors to their posterity, which either through the want of time, of sufficient light upon the subject, or through the pressure of greater matter, they were unable to perform. ”

“ Has not every nation sacrificed human victims to their false ideas of God?—The Philistines, the Druids, the Hindoos, the Carthaginians, the Romans sacrificed their citizens to their angry idols. Shall we then from these early and popular errors, argue that God is but man in vice? ”

“ How could he speak on the subject of the punishment of death, and not inquire into the origin of the right. For to us it seems one of those questions, which would most naturally arise in the mind of every man. And the only manner in which we can explain its never having been started by the ancient sages, is by the knowledge of how perhaps unwilling, certainly how sluggish we are, in the discussion of those points which we find received by all, and by the knowledge of the reluctance in going over ground that has not yet been trod by others. ”

“ We do not pretend to give this as the only cause; by such an absurdity we should expose ourselves deservedly to the ridicule of our adversaries: but we certainly maintain that it was not one of the most insignificant of those that hastened the depravation of the morals of that once glorious Rome. Do we find that those who have seen Russia in its present state, discern more vice, more robberies, more murders now than before the time of Elizabeth? Do they not on the contrary find more virtue, more corrected vice? ”

“ Conscious that eternity has already begun its reign, that they are under the wings of that monster, whose extremities are hid in the interminable abyss of night, capable from the degradation of their minds, of imagining no different state from the present, they will not grieve to part from their friends, for they must know, that the few years they may survive, will be but as the passing of a cloud before the firmament, and that when it has flitted from their gaze, their friends, if friends they can have, will be joined to them for an immortality. ”

“ Let us consult the criminal records of every country, and every page will show us its insufficiency, every line will contradict those who maintain that by the dread of death, men are hindered from pursuing the path that leads to crime. This punishment not only does not render less frequent the crimes of robbery, and forgery, for which it is so wantonly ordained, but if it were not for the palliative, which we have been forced to adopt, of showing more leniency to mere robbers, whose life has been spared, would render frequent the worst of crimes, murder. ”

“ We remember hearing a master once say to his scholar, who brought as an excuse for a fault, the example of another—if he hung would you hang too—so, though men may have committed an enormous crime, are we to be allowed the commission of another, and because many chuse to commit a small crime, are we to be allowed to punish a small crime with death? ”

“ He who has read the annals of America, he who has heard the accounts of travellers and voyagers amongst savage nations, must be astonished to find savages in this so superior in mercy and illumination to European nations. For who ever heard of an American being put to an ignominious death for stealing a day’s subsistence? ”

“ Amongst those however who maintain this doctrine of the frequency of a crime being a warrant for more severe punishment, even death, is Sir Mat. Hales, whom Blackstone denominates the great and good. He writes, "when offences grow enormous, frequent and dangerous to a kingdom, or its inhabitants, severe punishment and even death itself is necessary to be annexed to laws, in many cases by the prudence of legislators." But can the injustice of one allow or render fit the injustice of another? ”

“ But some will say that it appears these laws are obsolete; that judges, jury, all agree in not fulfilling them; that only one in eight are executed of all those condemned; and only one condemned in 1872. Granted; but why leave to the discretion of men, what every free nation requires should be exactly fixed; why set traps, that we may let down upon the unwary, or hold firm according as it may suit the prejudice of some or the advantage of others? Besides, has not this uncertainty a tendency to render crimes more frequent? Are not men apt to count uncertain future punishment as none? ”

“ Where the sovereign yet rules over a willing people, we think that death would be useless and hence unjust; for would not perpetual imprisonment answer every purpose, if the majority of the nation was against the disturber of its peace? ”

“ That there are cases where the death of the offender is necessary, is not what we mean to deny—Murder is a crime so heinous, so horrible, and one so above the reach of any other punishment that we think in this case, death necessarily should follow death. Some, however, have doubted, amongst others Beccaria, whether we should not inflict death in the case of conspiracy against the country and in the case of rebellion. ”

“ If this is the reasoning we are to follow, which is indeed the argument adduced by Montesquieu and Rousseau—then why, the suicide will argue, why am not I allowed to barter my life for peace, which I believe dwells in the grave? And what can we answer, if man is allowed to barter life for peace with society? ”

“ In cases of anarchy, in cases where all law is laid aside and the appeal is made only to the sword; there, as right and wrong have indeed nothing to do with the question, we cannot pretend to talk of the right of death—since no right is acknowledged but in cases, where the laws yet have sway. ”

“ The French sages, though perhaps it was owing to them that Russia adopted the system, in their own country were content with examining, criticizing, and commenting on it, and never, during the whole of that sanguinary revolution, when stretching forth hands imbrued in the blood of their innocent countrymen, they talked of reason, philanthropy, and universal love, never was a single voice raised to propose a system of penal laws, the spirit of which was true love of the human race. ”

“ To judge of the fitness of a punishment we should examine whether it fulfils all the uses intended in its adoption. The cause of our using punishment, says Blackstone, is as a precaution against future crimes, and this, punishment does in three ways, 1st, by amending the individual, 2dly, by deterring others from the commission of the same crime, and 3dly, by depriving the offender of the means of future mischief.
Examining the punishment of death, by the test of these uses, what is the result? Can we pretend that it improves the man? ”

“ But what should we say of the watchmaker, who, because a watch should gain upon time, cast it on the pavement, where it is broken to fragments? Yet this is the conduct those defend, who, because death fulfils this last intention of punishment, advise the retaining of capital inflictions. ”

“ Thus that nation, which every rival stigmatised with the name of barbarian, had first the glory of adding to her other glorious wreaths the more honorable civic crown of reforming her code according to a system that does honor to the feeling heart. ”

“ Following the same course, it is now the time to look to our laws, which though they may not appear to some immediately to concern the welfare of our constitution, still have the most intimate concern therein; for so closely linked are private and public good, that we much doubt the possibility of drawing the separating line. It is not, however, our intention, to enter into the whole of this subject at once, but to confine ourselves, for the present, to the examination of the relative proportion of punishment and guilt, in those cases where death is ordained by our criminal code. ”

“ Italy, the nation which has set the example, almost in every pursuit, either of good or bad, was in this also the first nation whose philosophers entered this career, and whose princes showed the example of availing themselves of the light thrown upon the subject. Beccaria, whatever might be the harshness of his disposition in private life, has rendered the public a great service by his attempts to introduce a milder spirit in the hearts of the administrators of justice—and Leopold of Tuscany, though some may complain of his frivolity, and others of his weakness ”