Retribution

“ But is the motive of punishment for retribution worthy of a moral person? If the proper aim of punishment were retributive, the returning of evil for evil in proportionate measure, how could the amount of punishment be determined in case of such offenses as perjury, deception, or treason? ”

“ I leave him to a higher retribution—to One who says, ‘Vengeance is mine.’ I believe him to be guilty of the murder but if the uplifting of my finger would send him to his disgraceful death, I would tie down my hand rather than lift it, for I could not, in my own mind, separate the man from the injury. ”

“ If the crime was great, who shall say that the retribution is not sufficient! God forbid that in the presence of calamities so wide-spread and so profound we should indulge in any spirit of pride or exultation. ”

“ The woes that are reserved for me are incapable alike of alleviation or intermission.
But I came not hither to recriminate. I came not hither to accuse others, but myself. I know the retribution that is appointed for guilt like mine. It is just. I may shudder at the foresight of my punishment and shrink in the endurance of it; but I shall be indebted for part of my torment to the vigour of my understanding, which teaches me that my punishment is just. Why should I procrastinate my doom and strive to render my burden more light? ”

“ Some internal and inscrutable feeling seemed to warn them that their hour of punishment was near, and that retribution was at hand—retribution for all the pain and misery which they had caused to others ever since they first sold themselves to work evil instead of endeavouring to lead good and pious lives, and to be a comfort instead of a plague and torment to their fellow-creatures. ”

“ If retribution alone could serve as a justification for any particular penalty, then all penalties selected by the legislature would by definition be acceptable means for designating society's moral approbation of a particular act. ”

“ They will call upon all the testimony which incredulity can require, to persuade them that, in passed ages, men there were—men, too, deemed worthy of popular recompense—who, for some small pecuniary retribution, hired themselves out to do any deeds of pillage, devastation, and murder, which might be demanded of them. ”

“ Retribution
[129] ⁠Retribution is one of the objects of punishment, but it carries less weight than deterrence. [158] The righteous anger of family and friends of the murder victim, reinforced by the public abhorrence of vile crimes, is easily translated into a call for vengeance. ”

“ I confess that they did not affect me as they seemed to affect most of my colleagues. An execution, with the violent thrusting of a human soul into the unknown, moved me deeply; but the physical punishment of a ruffian who had himself inflicted atrocious suffering upon some innocent person seemed to be such well-deserved retribution that even the coward's shrieks for mercy made no impression upon my nerves; and yet I have seen reporters who could laugh and joke at an execution faint at the flogging of a garrotter. So differently are human beings constituted! ”

“ If thou wilt have nothing but retribution, then nothing but retribution thou shalt have. If thou must needs do justice thyself, I will do justice likewise. Because I am merciful, dost thou think me careless? ”

“ Nevertheless—over-ridden, and despised, and scattered as we are, mercenaries and beggars abroad, and landless at home—still something whispers in my ear that there will come at last a retribution, and such a one as will make this perjured, corrupt, and robbing ascendency a warning and a wonder to all after times. ”

“ The story of what took place during those bloody days of retribution is too long to tell, and it must suffice to sum it up in the frightful death roll of fourteen thousand persons—six thousand of them killed in open fight, eight thousand executed in bitter revenge. ”

“ I come now to consider, subject to the reservation above expressed, the two justifications most often cited for the retention of capital punishment. The concept of retribution — though popular for centuries — is now criticized as unworthy of a civilized people. Yet this Court has acknowledged the existence of a retributive element in criminal sanctions, and has never heretofore found it impermissible. ”

“ But the law [of retribution] does stand fast. Nothing ever did, ever shall, ever can escape it. Take any essence-drop or particle of evil into your heart and life, and you shall pay for it in the loss, if not of gold or of honor, yet of the finest sense and the finest enjoyment of all things divinest, most beautiful and most blessed in your being. I know of no writer among us who has emphasized this fact, this law, more sharply than Waldo Emerson, and I commend his pages to you in this view. ”

“ Vengeance and retribution require a long time; it is the rule.” ”

“ Human retribution cannot reach this guilt; human feeling may not penetrate the flinty heart that perpetrates it; but an hour is surely coming, with more than human retribution on its wings, when that flint shall be melted, either by the power of penitence and grace, or in the fires of remorse. ”

“ There is justice done continually, even on this stage of trial, though many pine and murmur: substantial retribution, even in this poor dislocated world of wrong, not seldom overtakes the sinner, not seldom encourages the saint. ”

“ While the barbarous idea of retribution has dominated the use of punishment in the past, and even today enjoys high repute in some quarters through the support of certain theological and pseudo-ethical dogmas, it is not too much to declare that the sole sociological justification for afflictive punishment is its deterrent effect. ”

“ There is no satisfaction in vengeance unless the offender has time to realize who it is that strikes him, and why retribution has come upon him. ”

“ but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge. You, who so well know the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance to a threat. At length I would be avenged; this was a point definitively settled—but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved, precluded the idea of risk. I must not only punish, but punish with impunity. A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its redresser. It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong. ”

“ Accustomed to be punished themselves for every trifle, and often for only being in the way of the rich, or their parasites; when, in fact, 521had the parisians seen the execution of a noble, or priest, though convicted of crimes beyond the daring of vulgar minds?—When justice, or the law, is so partial, the day of retribution will come with the red sky of vengeance, to confound the innocent with the guilty. ”

“ Punishment may be considered in the light of a vindictive retribution for sin—a penalty demanded by the eternal principles of justice as the natural and proper sequel and complement of the past act of transgression, with or without regard to any salutary effects that may result from it in respect to future acts. ”

“ And it is equally an error to suppose that the original wrongdoers remain unaffected by the retribution which befalls their descendants. On the contrary, they witness it from the next world, where it adds poignancy to their remorse, and entails on them fresh penalties over and above those which they have already been doomed to suffer. ”

“ The purpose of vindictive satisfaction has been eliminated without any substitute having been provided. Those who accept this view commonly advance retribution to the first place among the various aspects of punishment, the others being relegated to subordinate positions. ”

“ But now, when the nation is called to strike the great and solemn balance of justice, and to decide measures of final retribution, it behooves us all that we should at least watch with our brethren for one hour, and take into our account what they have been made to suffer for us. ”

“ The instinct for retribution is part of the nature of man, and channeling that instinct in the administration of criminal justice serves an important purpose in promoting the stability of a society governed by law. ”

“ It was the law of this judgment, that any man who had wronged another should, in retribution, resign to him so much of his own merit as was equivalent to the wrong, the [427] quantity being adjusted by weight; and if he who had committed the injury happened to have no merit, or not enough for atonement, he had to receive from the injured person a portion of his sins, and be judged for them as if he had committed them himself. When a sinner was condemned, the earth opened under his feet, and showed a dreadful passage, into which he fell ”

“ We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, and does not come to a crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning confutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie with him, he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but should we not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the eternal account.
Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude must be bought by any loss. ”

“ “The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else. Somewhere else retribution will come on the real offender. Here it often seems to fall on the wrong person.” ”

“ Is there any proportion between the injury done by a theft, value fourteen shillings and three-pence, and the punishment of a human creature, by death, on a gibbet? Might not that woman, by her labour, have made the reparation ordained by God, in paying four-fold? Is not all punishment inflicted beyond the merit of the offence, so much punishment of innocence? In this light, how vast is the annual quantity, of not only injured but suffering innocence, in almoft all the civilized states of Europe! ”

“ If I have wronged any man I am willing to make him restitution. If, in a single instance, in the course of my command, I have done that which I cannot fully justify, justice requires that I should suffer for it. ”

“ O true believers, the law of retaliation is ordained you for the slain: the free shall die for the free, and the servant for the servant, and a woman for a woman; but he whom his brother shall forgive, may be prosecuted, and obliged to make satisfaction according to what is just, and a fine shall be set on him33 with humanity. This is indulgence from your Lord, and mercy. And he who shall transgress after this, by killing the murderer, shall suffer a grievous punishment. And in this law of retaliation ye have life, O ye of understanding, that peradventure ye may fear. ”

“ To visit that guilt with exemplary punishment was the sacred duty of a Sovereign who had sworn, with his hand lifted up towards heaven, that he would, in his kingdom of Scotland, repress, in all estates and degrees, all oppression, and would do justice, without acceptance of persons, as he hoped for mercy from the Father of all mercies. ”

“ Dei xxi, 11) , "Tully writes that the laws recognize eight forms of punishment, indemnity, prison, stripes, retaliation, public disgrace, exile, death, slavery." Now some of these were prescribed by the Law. "Indemnity," as when a thief was condemned to make restitution fivefold or fourfold. "Prison," as when (Num. 15:34) a certain man is ordered to be imprisoned. "Stripes"; thus (Dt. 25:2) , "if they see that the offender be worthy of stripes; they shall lay him down, and shall cause him to be beaten before them." ”

“ This principle we have pursued in the chapter on Rewards and Punishments; we have not considered punishment as vengeance or retaliation, but as pain inflicted with the reasonable hope of procuring some future advantage to the delinquent, or to society. ”

“ Whoever by provocation or ridicule, or by praise or flattery, causes another to commit an injury, or is the cause why reparation is not made for injustice committed, is himself bound to make restitution in the same way as one who is the cause of injustice by counsel. ”

“ Retributive punishment, in the only sense in which it is admissible in any rational system of administering justice, is that which serves for the satisfaction of that emotion of retributive indignation which in all healthy communities is stirred up by injustice. It gratifies the instinct of revenge or retaliation, which exists not merely in the individual wronged, but also by way of sympathetic extension in the society at large. ”

“ Look at the records of your own government, and you will find that hundreds have been executed for the very crime, which has called forth the sentence of condemnation against this woman, and drawn down upon her the arms of vengeance. What have our brothers done, more than the rulers of your own people have done? ”

“ The object of true redress is to restore the position demanded by the rule of right, to substitute justice for injustice, to compel the wrongdoer to restore to the injured person that which is his own. A like purpose is assigned to punishment, so long as it is imperfectly differentiated from that retributive vengeance which is in some sort a reparation for wrongdoing. ”

“ You must consider, too, whether you have sung bad songs, or brought in bad books, or whether you have given bad counsel, as, for instance, advising someone that he should take his revenge on someone else, should exact satisfaction by force. Consider, too, whether you have ever taken anything from a next-door neighbour and neglected to pay it back, whether you have neglected to give some alms which you had been told to give or make some restitution which your parents, who are dead, should have made. ”