KIDD'S OWN JOURNAL. 



39 



punishment of death ? If we regard the punish- 

 ment of death, as the destruction of a mischievous 

 and incorrigible individual, or as a means of pre- 

 venting crime, I think, with Montesquieu, J. J. 

 Rousseau, Sonnenfels, Hommel, Filangieri, 

 Schmalz, Kleinschrodt, Feuerbach, Klein, Bexon, 

 and others, that we cannot call in question the 

 right, which society has, of destroying one of its 

 members. To deny this truth would be to refuse 

 to society the right of providing for its security 

 and good order, and, consequently, of employing 

 all the means and all the motives capable of pre- 

 venting crimes. Who can doubt that the punish- 

 ment of death is an effectual means of inti- 

 midating the greater part of those whose inclina- 

 tions are perverse ?* 



There is room for some very sage distinctions 

 for determining the cases which render the 

 punishment of death indispensable. Can we inflict 

 it on a person whose conduct has always been 

 irreproachable, and ~who has been urged, by an 

 extremely unfortunate combination of circum- 

 stances, to the commission of murder? Such a 

 murderer is neither so wicked nor so incorrigible, 

 as many of the pests of society. Again, it is 

 cruelty to pronounce sentence of death, as the law 

 is in many countries, for crimes to which a large 

 number of individuals are constantly exposed ; 

 often by the negligence of others, often by tempta- 

 tions, unhappily too well suited to human frailty, 

 such as theft, &c. ; or for vices which have little 

 influence on social order, and the immorality of 

 which, however revolting, remains concentrated 

 in the agent, such as certain excesses of sen- 

 suality, &c. 



If there be a crime, which deserves to be treated 

 as murder the most premeditated, foolish and 

 dangerous, that crime is duelling. Usually for 

 the merest trifles, and sometimes, exasperated by 

 the taunts of a bully by profession, men kill one 

 another, in presence of numerous witnesses ! No ! 

 I might in vain transport myself to the most 

 barbarous countries and times, I should never be 

 able to conceive their allowing so atrocious, so 

 cruel an outrage on morality to subsist ! Pre- 



• We have serious doubts, not only as to the expe- 

 diency of capital punishment, but as to our having any 

 right to take life for any offence. Capital punishment 

 must either be defended on the ground that the Scrip- 

 tures sanction it, or that criminals should be made to 

 receive a certain degree of pain for a certain degree of 

 guilt ; or, that the safety of society requires it as terror 

 to prevent a repetition of crime. The plea, that capital 

 punishment prevents the repetition of crime we think 

 unfounded. We are of opinion, that it is not in the nature 

 of capital punishment to produce the result desired. To 

 suppose that the punishment of one individual will have 

 the effect to destroy the propensity to sin in another, is 

 uuphilosophical, inasmuch as moral reformation is not 

 the natural effect of such a cause. The only sure remedy 

 against crime is to improve the condition of man. If an 

 individual has violated the laws of God and man, he 

 should be treated rather as a moral patient, than a being 

 capable of appreciating moral excellence. The fact that 

 he does not respect virtue and honor, proves that he is 

 insensible to their influence — and shows the necessity of 

 his being educated entirely with reference to a proper 

 development of them. In order that such a person may 

 be subjected to suitable discipline — to develop his moral 

 sentiments, confinement would become necessary ; but it 

 should never be attended by circumstances to degrade 

 the subject in his own estimation. His improvement 

 would depend upon the display of those good qualities in 

 the persons of his keepers, in which he proved himself 

 deficient by his acts of moral turpitude.— Ed. K. J. 



judice, say you, demands it. Prejudice ! To 

 prejudice, then, the laws must sacrifice the life of 

 the citizens, morality, the precepts of religion, the 

 happiness of families ! But how destroy this 

 prejudice? How have other nations destroyed 

 it ? But it is not well, you say again, to destroy 

 a prejudice which upholds courage and honor. 

 What honor, what courage, is it to kill or be 

 killed for a few words which happen to displease 

 you, or for the vanity and admiration of a mistress ? 

 Die for your country, perish in defence of her 

 rights, and men will acknowledge your courage. 

 The French nation has certainly no need of these 

 follies, of this braggadocio prowess, to convince 

 the world that she has honor and courage. 



As for the gradation of punishment, many 

 governments wholly omit the punishment of death, 

 except in cases of parricide and regicide. Men 

 then regard the punishment of death as the final 

 limit of the rights of justice over the guilty. 



But is the punishment of death, without aggra- 

 vation, always sufficient to prevent crime ? Fre- 

 quently, death itself is no evil. The unfortunate 

 man, as Sonnenfels says, wishes it, because it will 

 deliver him from alljjhis troubles ; man, in despair, 

 inflicts it on himself; the martyrs to glory, or 

 religion, run to meet it, to gain a name, or to 

 enjoy the happiness of future life : the laws even 

 suppose that the loss of life will not deter the 

 guilty, since they enjoin the preventing them 

 from destroying themselves in prison. Experience, 

 too, teaches how little the sentence of death 

 agitates them, and with what resolution they go 

 to the scaffold. For those men whose life is a 

 continual scene of crimes and of brutal pleasure, 

 perpetual imprisonment would be a more painful 

 punishment than death. Shame, and regard for 

 the future, are nothing with such wretches : to 

 die is nothing say they, and there we must end. 

 Does not the consequence follow then, that the 

 punishment of death ought to be aggravated? 

 Man, considered as a reasonable being, is deter- 

 mined by the strongest and most numerous 

 motives : we must then oppose to the criminal, 

 motives the more powerful as his propensity to 

 evil is more energetic, and as the consequences of 

 it are more mischievous ; and ordinary death 

 being insufficient, we must seek to deter him by 

 the menace of one more terrible. 



To give to this exception an appearance of 

 philosophy and justice, it is said, that the enormity 

 of the crimes for which the punishment of death 

 is established hardly permits us to perceive the 

 smallest difference between them, and that, con- 

 sequently, we cannot introduce any modification 

 of the punishment of death. 



If we must judge of crimes from the malignity 

 of the malefactor, and the evils which result from 

 them ; if it be even established as an axiom, that a 

 crime consists in the act itself and in the intention 

 of the evildoer; these principles, against which 

 there is nothing to object, cannot agree with the 

 assertion that all capital crimes are nearly equal, 

 and, consequently, merit equal punishment. Can 

 we maintain that the man, who for revenge kills 

 with deliberate purpose the destroyer of the 

 happiness of his life ; that he, who exasperated 

 by the insolent conduct of a traitor, immolates 

 him to his resentment ; that a young girl, without 

 experience and a prey to despair, who destroys 



