448 



MAINE. 



executed. The result was, that the last Legis- 

 lature repealed the constabulary law, and al- 

 though the prohibitory liquor law remains on 

 the statute-books, it has been comparatively a 

 dead letter. A strong effort is made by the 

 prohibitionists to have the State police restored 

 and to secure the most vigorous execution of 

 the existing law respecting the sale of intoxi- 

 cating drinks. 



Another subject which has been agitated to 

 some extent is the abolition of the death-penal- 

 ty for crime. Some degree of feeling was ex- 

 cited against the Governor for signing the 

 death-warrant of one Harris, an ignorant and 

 brutal negro, whose crime was of a very ag- 

 gravated character, and the Attorney-General 

 in his report took occasion to cast some grave 

 reflections on Governor Chamberlain for not 

 making this a case for Executive clemency. 

 On this point the Governor said in his message 

 to the Legislature : " It is said that the facts 

 of Harris's early life the degrading influence 

 of slavery, and the development of his brutal 

 passions alone, and his being almost in his le- 

 gal infancy should have been considered. They 

 were considered, and at their full value. They 

 were a relieving element in the case; they 

 were ground of gratitude that no man nursed 

 of woman was left to do these horrors and of 

 congratulation that this precocity of guilt was 

 nipped in its * legal infancy,' before its blossom 

 and full fruits had come. But they did not 

 appear sufficient to entitle him to special grace. 

 ' Previous good character ' is a mitigation but 

 to plead a ' previous bad character ' is a novel- 

 ty in jurisprudence." 



On the general subject of abolishing the 

 penalty, he says : " However the experience 

 of suffering may have affected my personal 

 sympathies, the consideration of the public 

 safety convinces me that this is not the time to 

 soften penalties. Too much crime is abroad, 

 and emboldened by the mildness and uncer- 

 tainty of punishment. Most of our neighbor- 

 ing States retain the death-penalty. We do 

 not wish to invite crime here by the impunity 

 it fails to find elsewhere. It is urged that we 

 should be merciful, but to whom, I ask ? To 

 the violator of all sanctities, the assassin of all 

 defencelessness the pitiless spoiler of the peace 

 and order of society ? or to the innocent, the 

 good, the peaceful, and well-doing, who rely 

 upon the protection of the State which they 

 serve and adorn ? Mercy is indeed a heavenly 

 grace, but it should not be shown to crime. It 

 is the crime, and not the man, at which the law 

 strikes. It is not to prevent that man alone 

 from repeating his offence, but to prevent 

 others from so doing. If the wretch who 

 meditates crime sees the sure and sharp penal- 

 ty before him, he may take better counsels. 

 This is merciful to him, to his intended victims, 

 and to society in general." 



The political campaign of the year was very 

 spirited in Maine, as it was elsewhere through- 

 out the country. The Democratic Convention 



met at Augusta on the 22d of June, and was 

 undoubtedly the largest assembly of the kind 

 ever known in the State. Eben F. Pillsbury 

 was nominated for Governor, and a board of 

 presidential electors put before the people for 

 their suffrages. The platform of the party, as 

 represented in this convention, was embodied 

 in the following resolutions, which were unani- 

 mously adopted : 



Resolved, That while the Constitution of the United 

 States was ordained and established by the people in 

 order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, 

 insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common 

 defence, and secure the blessing of liberty, and con- 

 tains ample provisions for the protection of the life, 

 liberty, and property of every citizen, the present 

 Congress, instigated and controlled by a spirit of local 

 animosity and partisan hate, have persistently ex- 

 cluded from the Union a large number of indepen- 

 dent States, and deprived their citizens of all represen- 

 tation in the government of the United States, hold- 

 ing them under the arbitrary rule of martial power. 

 Spurious and pretended legislative and judicial offi- 

 cers have been set over them, by whose usurped 

 authority, sustained by military power, tyrannical 

 and unconstitutional laws have been enforced, test- 

 oaths of an extraordinary and entangling nature have 

 been imposed as a condition of exercising the right 

 of suffrage, and large classes of the most intelligent 

 citizens wholly disfranchised, while the right to vote 

 has 1 been conferred on hordes of ignorant negroes ; 

 the right of accused persons to a speedy and public 

 trial by jury has been denied ; the right of the people 

 to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and 

 effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, 

 has been violated, and they have been deprived of 

 life, liberty, and property, without due process of law, 

 and the freedom of speech and the press has been 

 abridged or wholly subverted ; the constitutional and 

 just powers of the executive and judicial departments 

 of the government have been invaded and usurped, 

 and a general system of partial, corrupt, extravagant, 

 and unconstitutional legislation inaugurated, so con- 

 structed and contrived as to throw the present enor- 

 mous burdens of taxation upon industry and the la- 

 boring poor for the benefit of accumulated wealth, and 

 with the manifest design to protect the fraudulent 

 speculator against the honest working-man ; by their 

 unjust, unconstitutional, and revolutionary proceed- 

 ings, the rights of our people have been invaded, 

 their liberties endangered, and the perpetuity of the 

 government placed in imminent peril. 



Resolved, That, in view of the existing state of pub- 

 lic affairs, the time has come for " all who love their 

 country to band together against the Jacobins " who 

 now control Congress, and who threaten to subvert 

 and destroy all that is valuable in the institutions be- 

 queathed to us by our patriotic fathers, and for the 

 protection and defence of which the brave soldiers of 

 our own day have imperilled their lives and shed their 

 blood. 



Resolved., That the right of the Federal Government 

 to tax the income of the national debt is clear in itself, 

 and supported by practice, and ought now to be effec- 

 tively exercised by collecting the tax out of the coupons 

 of the national bonds, and that such a rate of taxation 

 should be imposed upon these coupons as will subject 

 capital so invested to its fair average share of public 

 burdens as compared with other descriptions of prop- 

 erty. 



Resolved, That the proceeds of such taxation should 

 be distributed among all the States on just, equitable 

 principles. 



Resolved, That it is the duty of the Government, in 

 good faith, to abide by the terms of all its contracts, 

 and that the principal of all debts due and owing by 

 the United States, having been declared by the act of 

 Congress of February 25, 18G2, to be payable in the 



