314 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



seems to be, not the punishment or reform of the con- 

 victs, but how much money the State can make out 

 of them. 



Whether this great error arises out of the pernicious 

 dispositions of our nature, or out of a mistaken notion 

 what constitutes punishment, I cannot say — but it cer- 

 tainly appears as though the whole penitentiary system 

 of the Union, was based upon this abominable idea, that 

 labor is 'punishment. Great God of nature! Can this 

 be true — No, it is as false, as those legislators are false 

 to the true interests of the great body of laborers whose 

 rights are sacrificed by bringing the labor of thieves, 

 villains and murderers into competition with the honest 

 mechanic, by sentencing convicts to "the punishment of 

 hard labor" in our State prisons. Punishment indeed! 

 Go to these convicts and ask them if labor is a punish- 

 ment — they will tell you that they look upon the privilege 

 of coming forth from their gloomy cells to labor in the 

 cheering light of day, as one of the greatest blessings. 



I have visited many penitentiaries in my day, and I 

 always have found the convicts well fed, well clothed, 

 well lodged, and cheerfully performing their labor, and 

 in fact better off than I have often found honest industry 

 outside the walls. It is a common thing in some States, 

 to farm out these convict laborers, to contractors who 

 will pay the greatest bonus to the State Treasury, thereby 

 bringing convict labor in direct competition with the free 

 mechanic. 



What is the remedy, do you ask? Plain and clear as 

 the light of day. Blot out of your statute book that cursed 

 slander upon a great majority of the laborers of this 

 country, that labor is a punishment. Cast out from the 

 yard and work-shops of your penitentiaries, every manu- 

 facturing implement, and sentence your convicts to that 

 most terrible punishment that all dread, a life of idleness, 

 solitary and alone, without a single musical sound of the 

 mechanic, or the human voice, where they would never 

 be cheered with the sight of their fellows in iniquity, and 



