Impenitence

“ The idea of punishment implies on the side of the person punished at once a capacity for determination by the conception of a common or public good, or in other words a practical understanding of the nature of rights as founded on relations to such public good, and an actual violation of a right or omission to fulfil an obligation, the right or obligation being one of which the agent might have been aware and the violation or omission one which he might have prevented. ”

“ The certainty of a punishment, moderate though it be, will ever make a stronger impression than the fear of another, more terrible, perhaps, but associated with the hope of impunity; for even the least evils when certain always terrify men’s minds, and hope, that gift of heaven, which often makes up to us for everything, always throws into the distance the idea of greater evils, especially when its force is increased by impunity, which avarice and weakness so often grant. ”

“ If a child is being corrected by its parent, or a criminal is paying the penalty which the judge has awarded to him for his crimes, it is an impeachment of their judgment to add in any way to the punishment that has been decreed. Those who oppress the third class are guilty of a sin against those who have always been special objects of His favour, and who make up a large proportion of the members of His kingdom. (See Homiletics and Comments on verse 21.) ”

“ He knows that he is playing for his life, and plays the game out with his wits about him. Impress, therefore, upon this class of offenders that the crime with which they stand charged is so heinous in the eyes of their fellow-creatures that every effort will be made to bring them to punishment, if their guilt is established, and you at once deprive them of one strong incentive to crime in this particular form—namely, the strong probability of impunity. ”

“ Impunity and remissness, for certain, are the bane of a commonwealth; but here the great art lies, to discern in what the law is to bid restraint and punishment, and in what things persuasion only is to work. ”

“ Punishment is unjust in proportion as the invective is true; punishment is unnecessary in proportion as the invective is false. For it confutes itself, and striking against a rock flies back, and repeating the diminished calumny proclaims only its own repulse. ”

“ The charge against her was very common and very indefinite, namely, "impudence." This crime could be committed by a slave in a hundred different ways, and depended much upon the temper and caprice of the overseer as to whether it was committed at all. He could create the offense whenever it pleased him. A look, a word, a gesture, accidental or intentional, never failed to be taken as impudence when he was in the right mood for such an offense. ”

“ THE precepts of the sixth class comprise the different ways of punishing the sinner. Their general usefulness is known and has also been mentioned by us. I will here describe them one by one and point out their nature in detail.
The punishment of him who sins against his neighbour consists in the general rule that there shall be done unto him exactly as he has done: if he injured any one personally, he must suffer personally; if he damaged the property of his neighbour, he shall be punished by loss of property. ”

“ How far the strictest search into crimes actually committed, the infliction of just, well-measured, but irremissible punishment, and the consequent rareness of moral impunity, are really practicable, has never yet been duly tried. ”

“ Now, men fall into impiety from three causes, which have been already mentioned, and from each of these causes arise two sorts of impiety, in all six, which are worth distinguishing, and should not all have the same punishment. ”

“ Whether such a monstrous Imposture, as was this pretended Miracle, happily discover'd does not call aloud for Vengeance and most exemplary Punishment; and whether any Nation of the World would suffer the like with Impunity, let any Man judge. ”

“ Immediately below, however, is a strong offender represented by the strong line, and before he will submit it is necessary to 'bite off his nose;' for punishment is the rule;—it must be continued and increased till the end is secured.
Line 3 is weak, and in an even place. The action of its subject will be ineffective; and is emblemed by the hard task of gnawing through dried flesh, and encountering, besides, what is distasteful and injurious in it. But again comes in the consideration that here punishment is the rule, and the auspice is not all bad. ”

“ We have now, it is evident, obtained the principle by which punishment ought to be regulated. We desire to prevent certain acts: That is our end, and the whole of our end: We shall assuredly prevent any acts, if we attach to them motives of the painful kind, sufficient to outweigh the motives of the opposite kind which lead to the performance. If we apply a less quantity of evil than is sufficient for outweighing those motives, the act will still be performed, and the evil will be inflicted to no purpose ”

“ For it is characteristic of all punishments which depend on duration for their efficacy—all, therefore, which are not corporal or pecuniary—that they are more rigorous than they seem; while it is, on the contrary, one of the strongest recommendations a punishment can have, that it should seem more rigorous than it is; for its practical power depends far less on what it is than on what it seems. ”

“ Since, however, a great, and perhaps the greatest part of the efficacy of punishment results from the certainty of its infliction, it is evident that every temptation to violate the law, from the hope that accident will be favourable, ought to be cut off. ”

“ One of the gentlemen, indeed, who conduct this prosecution, (Mr. Campbell,) contends for the reverse of this proposition, and holds that for such official acts as are the subject of impeachment no indictment will lie or can be maintained. For, says he, it would involve us in this monstrous oppression and absurdity, that a man might be twice punished for the same offence—once by impeachment, and then by indictment. And so most surely he may; and the limitation of the punishment on impeachment takes away the injustice and oppression the gentleman dreads. ”

“ A command is the signification of a desire or wish, accompanied with the power and the purpose to inflict evil if that desire is not complied with. The person so desired is bound or obliged, or placed under a duty, to obey. Refusal is disobedience, or violation of duty. The evil to be inflicted is called a sanction, or an enforcement of obedience; the term punishment expresses one class of sanctions. ”

“ We err in looking for a visible and material penalty, as if God imposed a fine of mishap for the breach of his statutes. Seldom, says Horace, has penalty lost the scent of crime, yet, on second thought, he makes the sleuth-hound lame. ”

“ Any excess is almost sure to invite a reaction; and, unfortunately, the reactions instead of taking the form of punishment of those guilty of the excess, is apt to take the form either of punishment of the unoffending or of giving immunity, and even strength, to offenders. ”

“ Every such power is a right of which the violation, if intended as a violation of a right, requires a punishment, of which the kind and amount must depend on the relative importance of the right and of the extent to which its general exercise is threatened. Thus every theory of rights in detail must be followed by, or indeed implies, a corresponding theory of punishment in detail, a theory which considers what particular acts are punishable, and how they should be punished. ”

“ Disobedience of orders, combinations to refuse duty, dishonest conduct, personal insolence, and habitual negligence and backwardness, are all causes which justify punishment in a greater or less degree. ”

“ I know of no solid purpose of punishment which the courts of law are not equal to, and history shows, that, in England, impeachment has been an engine more of passion than justice. A great ball is to be given here on the 22nd, and in other great towns of the Union. ”

“ THE ORIGIN OF PUNISHMENTS—THE RIGHT OF PUNISHMENT.
From political morality, unless founded on the immutable sentiments of mankind, no lasting advantage can be hoped. Whatever law deviates from these sentiments will encounter a resistance which will ultimately prevail over it, just in the same way as a force, however slight, if constantly applied, will prevail over a violent motion applied to any physical body. ”

“ Now this same suffering, if inflicted by the law, will be what is commonly called a punishment; if incurred for want of any friendly assistance, which the misconduct, or supposed misconduct, of the sufferer has occasioned to be withholden, a punishment issuing from the moral sanction; if through the immediate interposition of a particular providence, a punishment issuing from the religious sanction.
IX. A man's goods, or his person, are consumed by fire. ”

“ The violation of right in one case is proceeded against by the method of indictment, in the other by an 'action.' The distinction that in one case punishment is the object of the process, in the other redress, is introduced in order to explain the difference of procedure; and to justify this distinction resort is had to the further distinction, that civil injury is considered to affect the individual merely, crime to affect the state. ”

“ This is not only a sufficient punishment of such faults, as he who is one of five hundred may probably commit, but as much as the greatest and freest people of the world did ever inflict upon their commanders that brought the greatest losses upon them.” (Discourses on Government, section 38.) This rejection from office is the only punishment provided by our constitution in cases of impeachment of the highest officers. ”

“ If you proceed by the forms of law, where is your evidence? Those who refused to impeach their accomplices, when transportation onlyPg 128 was the punishment, will hardly be tempted to witness against them when death is the penalty. ”

“ Where the act is conclusively indicative of a habit, such an increase must be given to the punishment as may enable it to outweigh the profit not only of the individual offence, but of such other like offenses as are likely to have been committed with impunity by the same offender. ”

“ THOSE injuries, which affect the honour, that is, that just portion of esteem which every citizen has a right to expect from others, should be punished with infamy. Infamy is a mark of the public disapprobation, which deprives the object of all consideration in the eyes of his fellow citizens, of the confidence of his country, and of that fraternity which exists between members of the same society. ”

“ In this judicature of the lords, an impeachment there, is one singularity, an exception to the grand rule, that every man is to be tried by his peers, and that is, that a commoner impeached by the commons shall be tried by the lords. ”

“ There is impunity in erring, if there is no delinquency; although indeed to err it is itself an act of delinquency. [1] With impunity, I repeat, does a man ramble, [2] when he (purposely) deserts nothing. ”

“ To do the best that can be done in the way of punishment, it will therefore be necessary, upon most occasions, to compound them, and make them into complex lots, each consisting of a number of different modes of punishment put together: the nature and proportions of the constituent parts of each lot being different, according to the nature of the offence which it is designed to combat. ”

“ This is the point from which we start; each indictment is now a bill of pains and penalties, a special law naming the criminal and prescribing his punishment. A second step is accomplished, when the multiplicity of crimes compels the legislature to delegate its powers to particular Quæstiones or Commissions, each of which is deputed to investigate a particular accusation, and if it be proved, to punish the particular offender. ”

“ The same Fact, if it have been constantly punished in other men, as a greater Crime, than if there have been may precedent Examples of impunity. For those Examples, are so many hopes of Impunity given by the Soveraign himselfe: And because he which furnishes a man with such a hope, and presumption of mercy, as encourageth him to offend, hath his part in the offence; he cannot reasonably charge the offender with the whole. ”

“ But as they have not done this, but have merely twitted us with not attempting everything at once, and with allowing the subordinate evil to wait until the central evil has been grappled with, we cheerfully admit the impeachment—coming as it does (such is the humour of the situation) from those who are themselves desirous of perpetuating both kinds of suffering, the greater and the smaller alike! We beg to assure them that we would much rather be inconsistently humane than consistently cruel. ”

“ It is necessary that the infamy inflicted by the laws should be the same with that which results from the relations of things, from universal morality, or from that particular system, adopted by the nation, and the laws, which governs the opinion of the vulgar. ”

“ And the soul, too, has its laws, as well as the body. And these can no more be violated with impunity, than can the laws which preside over our physical organism. In the violation of spiritual as in that of physical laws, a penalty follows with undeviating certainty;—not a penalty arbitrarily inflicted, or in the way that human tribunals punish offenders against civil enactments, but a penalty linked with transgression as effects are linked with causes. ”

“ In proportion as punishments are uncertain, they will be little regarded, and particularly so when even innocence constitutes no security. In the case of the preventive check, not only is the punishment uncertain, but, what is equally pernicious, there is the like uncertainty as to the character of the offence. ”