There are, however, men who pursue crime as a vocation--as a
profession--men who have been convicted again and again, and who will
persist in using the liberty of intervals to prey upon the rights of
others. What shall be done with these men and women?
Put one thousand hardened thieves on an island--compel them to produce
what they eat and use--and I am almost certain that a large majority
would be opposed to theft. Those who worked would not permit those
who did not, to steal the result of their labor. In other words,
self-preservation would be the dominant idea, and these men would
instantly look upon the idlers as the enemies of their society.
Such a community would be self-supporting. Let women of the same class
be put by themselves. Keep the sexes absolutely apart. Those who are
beyond the power of reformation should not have the liberty to reproduce
themselves. Those who cannot be reached by kindness--by justice--those
who under no circumstances are willing to do their share, should be
separated. They should dwell apart, and dying, should leave no heirs.
What shall be done with the slayers of their fellow-men--with murderers?
Shall the nation take life?
It has been contended that the death penalty deters others--that it has
far more terror than imprisonment for life. What is the effect of the
example set by a nation? Is not the tendency to harden and degrade not
only those who inflict and those who witness, but the entire community
as well?
A few years ago a man was hanged in Alexandria, Virginia. One who
witnessed the execution, on that very day, murdered a peddler in the
Smithsonian grounds at Washington. He was tried and executed, and one
who witnessed his hanging went home, and on the same day murdered his
wife.
The tendency of the extreme penalty is to prevent conviction. In the
presence of death it is easy for a jury to find a doubt. Technicalities
become important, and absurdities, touched with mercy, have the
appearance for a moment of being natural and logical. Honest and
conscientious men dread a final and irrevocable step. If the penalty
were imprisonment for life, the jury would feel that if any mistake were
made it could be rectified; but where the penalty is death a mistake is
fatal. A conscientious man takes into consideration the defects of human
nature--the uncertainty of testimony, and the countless shadows that
dim and darken the understanding, and refuses to find a verdict that, if
wrong, cannot be righted.
The death penalty, inflicted by the Government, is a perpetual excuse
for mobs.
The greatest danger in a Republic is a mob, and as long as States
inflict the penalty of death, mobs will follow the example. If the State
does not consider life sacred, the mob, with ready rope, will strangle
the suspected. The mob will say: "The only difference is in the trial;
the State does the same--we know the man is guilty--why should time
be wasted in technicalities?" In other words, why may not the mob do
quickly that which the State does slowly?
Every execution tends to harden the public heart--tends to lessen
the sacredness of human life. In many States of this Union the mob is
supreme. For certain offences the mob is expected to lynch the supposed
criminal. It is the duty of every citizen--and as it seems to me
especially of every lawyer--to do what he can to destroy the mob spirit.
One would think that men would be afraid to commit any crime in a
community where the mob is in the ascendency, and yet, such are the
contradictions and subtleties of human nature, that it is exactly the
opposite. And there is another thing in this connection--the men who
constitute the mob are, as a rule, among the worst, the lowest, and the
most depraved.
A few years ago, in Illinois, a man escaped from jail, and, in escaping,
shot the sheriff. He was pursued, overtaken--lynched. The man who put
the rope around his neck was then out on bail, having been indicted for
an assault to murder. And after the poor wretch was dead, another man
climbed the tree from which he dangled and, in derision, put a cigar in
the mouth of the dead; and this man was on bail, having been indicted
for larceny.
Those who are the fiercest to destroy and hang their fellow-men for
having committed crimes, are, for the most part, at heart, criminals
themselves.
As long as nations meet on the fields of war--as long as they sustain
the relations of savages to each other--as long as they put the laurel
and the oak on the brows of those who kill--just so long will citizens
resort to violence, and the quarrels of individuals be settled by dagger
and revolver.