Impunity

“ Hence it is, that while the influence of the laws is relaxed and weakened, the most shocking crimes are committed with impunity, or checked only by such means as are scarcely less shocking. Let the gentlemen of the country then, if they regard their dignity or their security, separate their cause from that of administration. Let them maintain with a becoming firmness, their own commanding station, repelling, on each hand, the enemy of the public tranquillity, and save the nation, as well from the obstinacy of its rulers, as the violence of the multitude. ”

“ Since, therefore, there is more to fear from a punished than from an unpunished criminal, there is the less reason to regret the general impunity of crime. There is indeed a large class of crimes for the prevention of which more would be done, by leaving them to their natural consequences, and to the strong power against them which the general interests and moral feelings of mankind will always enforce, than by actual punishment. ”

“ Will you suffer them to insult your understanding, and to stamp you as incorrigible fools, with impunity? This, indeed, is one of the cases in which we do not know what to admire most—the towering impudence of the imposters, or the unfathomable stupidity of the victims. ”

“ Compare the number of wrongs committed with impunity by citizens among us with those committed by the sovereign in other countries, and the last will be found most numerous, most oppressive on the mind, and most degrading of the dignity of man. ”

“ This is a dangerous argument, my Lords, and exposes government to the violence of every one who can overturn it with impunity. You have no defence against any person in this case who is resolute, except superior strength; for the gallows will not frighten a man who is not conscious of guilt, if he has any degree of natural fortitude. ”

“ If a man of position robs his creditors or commits other offenses is he not certain of impunity? Are not the blows he bestows, his violent assaults, the murders and the assassinations he is guilty of, matters that are hushed up and forgotten in a few months?—Let this same man be robbed and the entire police set to work, and woe to the poor innocents they suspect!—Has he to pass a dangerous place, escorts overrun the country. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Their robbing us with impunity is, by no means, a sufficient reason why we should treat them in the same manner, a conduct, we see, they themselves cannot justify: They found themselves injured, and sought for redress in a legal way. ”

“ In a well-governed State, there are few punishments, not because there are many pardons, but because criminals are rare; it is when a State is in decay that the multitude of crimes is a guarantee of impunity. ”

“ But when we add to this inward contempt of law and to the countless grudges and enmities which called for satisfaction, the impunity which crime enjoyed during times of political disturbance, we can only wonder that the state and society were not utterly dissolved. ”

“ If either of the former holds the sword of justice, there is plainly ground for the greatest of crimes to hope for impunity; but if it be goodness, there can be no possible hope, whilst the reason of things, or the ends of government, call for punishment. ”

“ The nation, like the individual, [Pg 364] cannot commit a crime with impunity. If we are guilty of lawlessness and brutal violence, whether our guilt consists in active participation therein or in mere connivance and encouragement, we shall assuredly suffer later on because of what we have done. ”

“ But impunity would lead to a demoralisation of the popular conscience in regard to crimes and offences, to an increase of the profound lack of foresight in criminals, and to the removal of the present impediment to fresh crimes during the term of incarceration. ”

“ They could dodge under the fences of the law and climb the barbed wire of morality with equal impunity, and the utmost rigor of punishment had little terror for those whose hardships could scarcely be artificially worsened. ”

“ One day or another, here or there, the saying always comes true. Offices and dignities are not to be accepted with impunity. The whole thing is to know whether the chains which you are forced to carry are of iron or of thread. ”

“ What does it avail to expose the absurd contrivance, or pernicious tendency of measures, if the man, who advises or executes, shall be suffered not only to escape with impunity, but even to preserve his power, and insult us with the favour of his Sovereign. ”

“ 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. ”

“ XXX. The second way, by which delays in criminal prosecutions afford occasions for delinquents to escape with impunity, is not so palpable, nor so obvious as the first, but in general is more successful, and oftener takes effect. I will explain what I mean. When a notorious crime is newly committed, all minds are sharpened against the offender, and filled with horror at the outrage. Even the most mild call out for punishment, and the injured person, invokes heaven and earth for it. The public in general seem filled with resentment, and breathe nothing but severity. ”

“ If such things are ever done in any circumstances with impunity, we know what must be done every day under the same sanction. It shows that there is an utter deadness to every principle of justice or feeling of humanity ”

“ But those who conspire against the constituted government connect in their sanguine hope the assurance of impunity with the execution of their crime, and would justly deride the mockery of an accusation which could only be preferred against them when their banners were unfurled, and their force arrayed. ”

“ Trust me, none can drink of the cup of vice with impunity. But you will say, that there are qualities of so mean or so horrible a nature, as to place the man that is governed by 31them out of the pale of communion with the virtuous. Malice, cruelty, deceit, ingratitude—crimes such as these, should you think, draw down upon those convicted of them no feelings more mild than abhorrence, execration, and scorn. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The penalties that attend the breach of God's laws some, nay, most, men seldom seriously reflect on; and amongst those that do, many, whilst they break the laws, entertain thoughts of future reconciliation, and making their peace for such breaches: and as to the punishments due from the laws of the commonwealth, they frequently flatter themselves with the hope of impunity. ”

“ Crime enjoys a disgraceful impunity, and each one feels at liberty to commit any aggression, or to avenge his own wrongs to any extent, without legal accountability.... Whether the parties will become reconciled or quieted, so as to live together in peace, is doubted.... ”

“ That much remains to be done in this respect no person will deny; all ranks must bear testimony to the dangers which both life and property are at present subjected to by the number of criminal people, who, from various causes (which it is the object of the Writer of these pages to explain) , are suffered with impunity to repeat acts of licentiousness and mischief, and to commit depredations upon individuals and the Public. ”

“ The legislators, (or rather lawyers, whose opinions, when alive, were interested and venal, but which after their death become of decisive authority, and are sovereign arbiters of the lives and fortunes of men) , terrified by the condemnation of some innocent person, have burdened the law with pompous and useless formalities, the scrupulous observance of which will place anarchical impunity on the throne of justice ”

“ Nations, like individuals, cannot become desperate gamblers with impunity. Punishment is sure to overtake them sooner or later. ”

“ Has the bigoted malignity of any individuals been crushed? Or has the stability of the government or has that of the country been weakened? Or are one million of subjects stronger than three millions? Do you think that the benefit they received should be poisoned by the stings of vengeance? If you think so you must say to them: "You have demanded your emancipation and you have got it; but we abhor your persons, we are outraged at your success, and we will stigmatize by a criminal prosecution the relief which you have obtained from the voice of your country." ”

“ A man might, out of mere malice or revenge, accuse another of the most infamous crimes, might excite against him the indignation of all his fellow-citizens by the most atrocious calumnies, might disturb, nay, overturn all his domestic peace, and embitter his parental affections, might inflict the most distressing punishments upon the weak, the timid, and the innocent, might prejudice all a man’s civil and political and private rights, and might stir up sedition, rebellion, and treason, even against the government itself, in the wantonness of his passions or the corruption of his heart. ”

“ With authority, punishment will pass away. This will be a great gain—a gain, in fact, of incalculable value. 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 community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment, than it is by the occurrence of crime. ”

“ You pretend to maintain the innocency of a thousand abuses, which, though permitted to the rest of men, would be forbidden to you? You enter into contestation, when it is intended to restrict you from the criminal pomps of the world; you, to whom the most innocent, if such there be, are forbidden in future, and whose only dress ought henceforth to be sackcloth and ashes? Can you still pretend to justify cares which are your inward shame, and which have so often covered you with confusion at the feet of the sacred tribunal? ”

“ I will pave the way with my colleagues of the Tribunal that must lead to clemency by exterminating conspirators and traitors. We will redouble our vigilance and our severity. No culprit shall escape us. And when the head of the last enemy of the Republic shall have fallen under the knife, then it will be given thee to be merciful without committing a crime, then thou canst inaugurate the reign of innocence and virtue in all the land, oh! ”

“ Corruption in civic or national government, inhumanity in the treatment of the criminal and the unfortunate, the oppression of the poor, the brutal disregard of the rights of the weak and the defenceless, any one of these will draw out our souls in the hot and aggressive indignation which is the imparted fire of the Holy Ghost. ”

“ Great God! how dread the punishment!
'A crowded populace, peopling the dense towns where the man of money thrives, while the labourer starves; want striding among the people in all its forms of terror; an ignorant and God-defying priesthood chuckling over the miseries of millions; a proud and merciless nobility adding wrong to wrong, and heaping insult upon robbery and fraud; royalty corrupt to the very heart; aristocracy rotten to the core ”

“ Crimes of worse than brutal violence, savage cruelty, crimes of treachery and cowardly cunning and conspiracy, breach of trust, tyrannical extortion, groveling intemperance, sensuality gross and shameless—the heart sickens at the record of a week's crime! ”

“ Who can defend himself from calumny, armed with that impenetrable shield of tyranny, secrecy? What a miserable government must that be, where the sovereign suspects an enemy in every subject, and, to secure the tranquillity of the public, is obliged to sacrifice the repose of every individual? ”

“ The curses, the complaints, and reproaches for all the crimes, all the violence, all the oppression perpetrated in his name, are entirely thrown upon him, while his situation and occupation do not admit the seeing and hearing everything and everybody himself. ”

“ A word of contempt against the King or the government, a joke, a detached phrase, was enough. It is incredible how many people, justly or unjustly, were more or less ruined, always without resource, without trial, and without knowing why. ”

“ Since, by the partial administration of our laws, innocence, when power was armed against it, had nothing better to hope for than guilt, what man of true courage would fail to set these laws at defiance, and, if he must suffer by their injustice, at least take care that he had first shown his contempt of their yoke? ”

“ Are we to be hunted to death without real law or trial, tortured into sham confessions, deluded with mock pardons, arraigned before hypocritical tribunals, ensnared by all the chicanery, and lying, and treachery, and ferreting of the false bureaucracy, with its spies, and its bloodhounds, and its knout-bearing police-agents ”

“ In the same way as human society by dint of injustice, want and harsh regulations causes so many innocent victims, so must punishment fall as the lightning falls, indiscriminately killing and destroying whatever it may encounter in its course. ”