Outlawry

“ Modern Bad Men—Murder and Robbery as a Profession—The School of Guerrilla Warfare—Butcher Quantrell; the James Brothers; the Younger Brothers.
Outlawry of the early border, in days before any pretense at establishment of a system of law and government, and before the holding of property had assumed any very stable form, may have retained a certain glamour of romance. The loose gold of the mountains, the loose cattle of the plains, before society had fallen into any strict way of living, and while plenty seemed to exist for any and all, made a temptation easily accepted and easily excused. ”

“ The man who chooses the career of outlawry is either a natural fool or an innocent madman. The term outlaw has a varied meaning. A man may be an outlaw, and yet a patriot. There is the outlaw with a heart of velvet and a hand of steel; there is the outlaw who never molested the sacred sanctity of any man's home; there is the outlaw who never dethroned a woman's honor, or assailed her heritage; and there is the outlaw who has never robbed the honest poor. ”

“ Outlawry is often a fit companion for treason and anarchy, for which the lowest seats of hell should be reserved. The outlaw, like the commercial freebooter, is often a deformity on the face of nature that darkens the light of God's day. ”

“ Not only do these "friends" not go abroad to plunder, but when their confederates who "do the work" commit a deed of outlawry in their vicinity, they first conceal the robbers, and then turn out as leaders of the hunters of the outlaws. ”

“ An outlaw is one who by his crimes has placed himself without the protection of his clan. A man can be declared an outlaw by his own clan, who thus publish to the tribe that they will not defend him in case he is injured by another. But usually outlawry is declared only after trial before the tribal council.
The method of procedure is analogous to that in case of murder. When the person has been adjudged guilty and sentence of outlawry declared, it is the duty of the chief of the Wolf clan to make known the decision of the council. ”

“ Now shalt thou go back to them as quickly as thou canst, and say that Mord must summon them both, both Flosi and Eyjolf, for having brought money into the Fifth Court, and make it a case of lesser outlawry. Then he shall summon them with a second summons for that they have brought forward that witness which had nothing to do with their cause, and so were guilty of contempt of the Thing; and tell them that I say this, that if two suits for lesser outlawry hang over one and the same man, that he shall be adjudged a thorough outlaw at once. ”

“ Upon the social horizon now appeared the sinister figure of the trained desperado, the professional bad man. The business of outlawry was turned into a profession, one highly organized, relatively safe and extremely lucrative. ”

“ But when the times grew peaceable, this bloody maxim wore out, and in the beginning of Edward the Third’s reign, it was resolved by all the judges, that the putting any man to death, except by the sheriff, and even by him without due warrant in law, however outlawed and convicted, was murder; and since the forementioned times, as the number of people encreased, and the opportunities of concealment and absconding along with them, it has been found necessary to grant the process of outlawry in many civil actions. ”

“ Of these therefore the chattels and also the lives are known to be in the hands of those who seize them, nor can they for any reason pertain to the King." [11] ("Dialogus de Scaccario," x.) .
An outlaw, as such, was incapable of exercising the most ordinary rights—he could not devise, inherit, own, or sell lands or houses. Civilly, he was dead. The only question is whether these disqualifications attached to him as the effects of felony or the resultant outlawry. ”

“ So much the petitioners recognize. They point out, however, that, at early English law, courts dealt with absconding defendants not by way of contempt, but under the ancient doctrine of outlawry, a practice whereby the defendant was summoned by proclamation to five successive county courts and, for failure to appear, was declared forfeited of all his goods and chattels. ”

“ It is significant that, so far as we know, the severe remedy of outlawry, which fell into early disuse in the state courts, was never known to the federal law. See United States v. Hall, 2 Cir., 198 F.2d 726, 727-728. ”

“ Now the law, or custom which was the same as law, for there was no written code, was that when one man had been killed, the next of kin was bound to prosecute the slayer and obtain from him money compensation, or outlawry, or else he might kill the slayer himself, or one of his kin. ”

“ Immediately on the return of Coasson to the fleet, under the date of the 17th of February, the Captain-General issued a proclamation of outlawry against L’Ouverture and Christophe, pronouncing it the imperative duty of every one who had the power to seize and deliver up the traitors. As Toussaint said to his family, Pongaudin was a residence for a citizen; outlaws must go to the mountains. ”

“ The Anglo-Saxons regarded him as an evil man: wearg, a scoundrel; Gothic vargs, a fiend. But very often the word meant no more than an outlaw. Pluquet in his Contes Populaires tells us that the ancient Norman laws said of the criminals condemned to outlawry for certain offences, Wargus esto: be an outlaw! ”

“ They said that no man could be an outlaw all his life, that was not a condition contemplated by their laws. They said that he had been outlawed first in 1011 for the slaying of Skeggi, and that he had been in outlawry ever since, which made nineteen years. ”

“ If an innocent man ‘‘ flies for treafon or felony, he forefeits all his goods and chattels. ‘‘ Outlawry, in a capital cafe, is as a conviction for the crime: And ‘‘ many men, who never were tried, have been executed upon the ‘‘ outlawry.’’ 4 Burrow. 2549.
Third. We do not know of any inftance in Pennʃylvania, of a perfon being executed upon outlawry by judicial proceedings alone : But a certain David Dawfon was executed, fince the Declaration of Independence, in confequence of an attainder by virtue of a proclamation of the Supreme Executive Council, and judicial proceedings thereupon. ”

“ On the north side of the Mine Ridge, that range running westward from Gap across Lancaster County, during the “fifties” there was a considerable amount of outlawry on the part of an organized “gang,” whose depredations now took on the form of kidnapping and again the less illegal, but by no means more popular, practice of aiding the recapture and return—regularly or irregularly—of fugitive slaves. ”

“ These pages are written in no spirit of vindictiveness, for all who give the subject consideration must concede that far too serious is the condition of that civilized government in which the spirit of unrestrained outlawry constantly increases in violence, and casts its blight over a continually growing area of territory. ”

“ When metropolitan places, with well-equipped police powers, give birth to such social organizations as the anarchists in Chicago and the Italian Mafia in New Orleans, and become asylums for organized assassins, the good people of these cities are no more responsible for the resultant evils than are the law-abiding people of Lamar County, Alabama, for the deeds of outlawry of which one of her citizens, by the accident of birthplace, was the chief exponent. ”

“ In the laws of Tennessee and Georgia, there is a similar proviso. Where could such a monstrous anomaly be found, save in a code of slave laws? Die of moderate punishment!! Truly, this is an unveiling of consciences!
"To set the matter in its proper light, it may be added that a proclamation of outlawry [6] against a slave is authorized, whenever he runs away from his master, conceals himself in some obscure retreat, and to sustain life, kills a hog, or some animal of the cattle kind! ”

“ Our Lady of Mercy, Order of.
A Spanish Order of Knighthood, instituted in 1218 by James I of Aragon. Its special mission was to work for the deliverance of captives in the hands of the Moors.
Outlawry.
Among the Norsemen certain crimes, such as the violation of a temple, or secret or unprovoked murder, could not be atoned for by “weregild,” and were punished by confiscation of all property and loss of all rights, the criminal becoming an outlaw. A man was also outlawed if he or his family were unable to pay “weregild.”
Overton’s Plot. ”

“ The author of “Fleta” expresses with terrible force the condition of persons so punished; they have wolves heads which may be cut off with impunity: “For she is a weyve whom no one will own, and it is equivalent to outlawry so far as penal consequences go. An outlaw and a weyve bear wolves {258} heads, which may be cut off by any one with impunity, for deservedly ought they to perish without law who would refuse to live according to law.”349 The outlaw lost all his property and rights ”

“ But the outlaw carries one thought constantly in his mind—and that is what makes him so sore against life, more than anything else—he knows where the marshals get their recruits of deputies. He knows that the majority of these upholders of the law were once lawbreakers, horse thieves, rustlers, highwaymen, and outlaws like himself, and that they gained their positions and immunity by turning state’s evidence, by turning traitor and delivering up their comrades to imprisonment and death. ”

“ The matter-of-fact manner in which the outlaw, who was, even as he spoke, being hunted by hundreds of men, talked of eluding his pursuers and fulfilling his promise, gave the scouts an idea of his absolute fearlessness which they could not but admire, while at the same time his contempt for the Service galled them. ”

“ The Outlaw protests again that he won his lands from the enemy, and as he won them so will he keep them, against all kings in Christendom; but having indulged in this vaunt asks mercy again, and offers to give up the keys of his castle if the king will constitute him and his successors sheriffs of the forest. The king, on his part, is equally ready for a compromise. The Outlaw, on surrendering the keys of his castle, shall be made sheriff of Ettrick Forest, and shall never be forfeited as long as he continues loyal, and his men shall have pardon if they amend their lives. ”

“ Much as we would have preferred, by the regular course of law, to have marked a more ignominious end, his hardiness, his readiness and his desperation prevented this, but leaves to us the very satisfactory reflection that there was found in the lawful paths of life the courage, the presence of mind and the constancy which surpassed that of the outlaw himself. ”

“ Robin. "I shall teach thee, proud sheriff, to be an outlaw."
"Before I lie here another night, Robin, smite off my head rather, and I'll forgive it thee," said the sheriff. "Let me go, for pity's sake!" he begged, "and I will be the best friend that ever thou hadst."
"Before I let thee go, thou shalt swear me here an oath," said the outlaw. "Swear on my sword that thou wilt never seek to do me harm by water or by land. And if thou find any of my men, by night or by day, thou shalt swear on thy oath to help them all thou canst." ”

“ The head of the horse is beside the outlaw. In a moment the rider will occupy the same spot—and then! The finger of the outlaw is upon the trigger—the deadly aim is taken!—what arrests the deed? Ah! surely there is a Providence—a special arm to save—to interpose between the criminal and his victim—to stay the wilful hands of the murderer, when the deed seems already done, as it has been already determined upon.
Even in that moment, when but a touch is necessary to destroy the unconscious traveller—a sudden rush is heard above the robber. ”

“ Margaret asked anxiously.
Virginia nodded. “It is a very lonely spot,” she said, “and so it is quite possible.”
“What is an outlaw?” the eastern girl inquired as they rode side by side toward the sand-hills.
“An outlaw is a man who has done something displeasing to his fellow citizens. He is driven from his home state and it would not be safe for him to return. Sometimes an outlaw is innocent of the charges against him and is just a victim of unfortunate circumstances, but one never knows, of course.” ”

“ The jobs have been too well done, too surely covered, to be the work of greasers or ordinary outlaws.”
“What's your view of the outlook? How's all this going to wind up? Will the outlaw ever be driven out?” asked Duane.
“Never. There will always be outlaws along the Rio Grande. All the armies in the world couldn't comb the wild brakes of that fifteen hundred miles of river. But the sway of the outlaw, such as is enjoyed by these great leaders, will sooner or later be past. The criminal element flock to the Southwest. But not so thick and fast as the pioneers. ”

“ Wearied with the labors of the strenuous day, now that they felt they had the notorious outlaw in their power, or at least where he could do no more harm, the troopers rolled themselves up in their blankets and were soon fast asleep, while a solitary sentinel stool guard over the crevice, at the two ends of which fires had been kindled. ”

“ I was myself an outlaw, until I was fifty-two years of age, without the power of obtaining redress where I was wronged, or of punishing fraud or theft from which I suffered, or of protecting the life and property of others, where my evidence was required. My ambition was to be a barrister, but legal friends assured me that the law turned upon the hinge of oath-taking, and that the path of the Bar would to me be a path of lying. It happens that I have never taken an oath. ”

“ Nor is it true, that the fugitive slave is made an "outlaw," and on that ground justifiable for bloody and murderous resistance of Law. He is under the protection of Law; and if any man injures him or kills him, the Law will avenge him, just as soon as it would you or me. He is not made an outlaw: common sense knows better. ”