adds to this account, "that the manners, principles, and religion of the inhabitants of Tuscany and of Rome are exactly the same. The abolition of death alone, as a punishment for murder, produced this difference in the moral character of the two nations." From this it would appear, rather that the murderers of Tuscany were invited, by the severe punishments in the neighboring territories of Rome, than that

"The power over human life is the sole prerogative of Him who gave it. Human laws, therefore, are in rebellion against this prerogative, when they transfer it to human

ha's.

"If society can be secured from violence by confining the

be both impossible and unjust. It means, that the punishment should be such as to deter from the commission of crime, but no greater. If, then, death has not this effect, why ought it to be applied? But that it has not this effect is shown by reasoning and by fact. Why, then, will you continue to apply it? Pressed by this inquiry, we have the same eternal answer,murder deserves death. Out of this circle no reasoning can drive them. Sometimes, indeed, we are asked, Are you sure, that, if we give up has been supposed to imply, that blood could only be exthis punishment, your substitute will prove effec-piated by blood. But I am disposed to believe, with a late tual? If you mean so effectual as to eradicate commentator on this text* of Scripture, that it is rather a the crime, I answer, no! But I am as sure as prediction than a law. The language of it is, simply, that experience, and analogy, and reason united, can such is the folly and depravity of man that murder, in every make me, that it will be more effectual. What age, shall beget murder. Laws, therefore, which inflict is it we fear? Why do we hesitate? You death for murder, are, in my opinion, as unchristian as those know, you cannot deny, that the fear of the which justify or tolerate revenge; for the obligations of gallows does not restrain from murder. We Christianity upon individuals, to promote repentance, to have seen a deliberate murder committed in the forgive injuries, and to discharge the duties of universal very crowd assembled to enjoy the spectacle of benevolence, are equally binding on states. a murderer's death; and do we still talk of its force as an example? In defiance of your menaced punishment, homicide stalks abroad and raises its bloody hand, at noon-day, in your crowded streets; and, when arrested in its career, takes shelter under the example of your murderer, so as to prevent a repetition of his crime, the end laws, and is protected, by their very severity, of extirpation will be answered. In confinement, he may be from punishment. Try the efficacy of milder reformed; and, if this should prove impracticable, he may punishments; they have succeeded. Your own statutes, all those of every State in the Union, -prove that they have succeeded, in other of death or servitude, and the indiscriminate destruction of fences; try the great experiment on this also. peaceable husbandmen, women, and children, were thought Be consistent: restore capital punishment in to be essential to the success of war, and the safety of states. other crimes, or abolish it in this. Do not fear But experience has taught us that this is not the case; and, that the murderers from all quarters of the in proportion as humanity has triumphed over these maxearth, seduced by the mildness of your penal ims of false policy, wars have been less frequent and terrible, code, will choose this as the theatre of their ex- and nations have enjoyed longer intervals of internal tranploits. On this point we have a most persua- quillity. The virtues are all parts of a circle. Whatever is sive example. In Tuscany, as we have seen, humane, is wise; whatever is wise, is just; and whatever is neither murder nor any other crime was pun-wise, just, and humane, will be found to be the true interest ished with death, for more than twenty years, of states, whether criminal or foreign enemies are the subduring which time we have not only the official ject of their legislation. declaration of the sovereign, that "all crimes had diminished, and those of an atrocious nature had become extremely rare," but the authority of the venerable Franklin for these conclusive facts; that in Tuscany, where murder was not punished with death, only five had been committed in twenty years,- -while in Rome, where that punishment is inflicted with great pomp and parade, sixty murders were committed in the short space of three months, in the city and its vicinity.* "It is remarkable," he

*If ever any philosophy deserved the epithets of useful and practical, it was that of Doctor Franklin. His opinions must have weight, not only from his character, but from the simple, intelligible reasoning by which they are supported. What says this venerable and irreproachable witness in the cause of humanity, which we are now pleading? "I suspect the attachment to death, as a punishment for murder, in minds otherwise enlightened upon the subject of capital punishment, arises from a false interpretation of a passage in the Old Testament, and that is, 'He that sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed.' This

be restrained for a term of years that will probably be coeval with his life.

"There was a time when the punishment of captives with

"For the honor of humanity, it can be said that, in every age and country, there have been found persons in whom uncorrupted nature has triumphed over custom and law. Else, why do we hear of houses being abandoned near to places of public execution? Why do we see doors and windows shut the days and hours of criminal executions? Why

do we hear of aid being secretly afforded to criminals to mitigate or elude the severity of their punishments? Why is the public executioner of the law a subject of such general detestation? These things are latent struggles of reason, or rather the secret voice of God himself, speaking in the

"I hope I shall not offend any one by taking the liberty to put my own construction on this celebrated passage, and to inquire, why it should be deemed a precept at all? To me, I must confess, it appears to contain nothing more than a declaration of what will generally happen; and in this view to stand exactly upon the same ground with such passages as the following: He that leadeth into captivity, shall go into captivity: He that taketh up the sword, shall fall by the sword.' The form of expression is precisely the same in both texts. Why, then, may they not all be interpreted in the same manner, and considered, not as commands, but as denunciations? and, if so, the magistrate will no more be bound, by the text in Genesis, to punish murder with death, than he will, by the text in the Revelation, to sell every Guinea captain to our West India planters."-Rev. W. Turner.

'those of Rome were attracted into Tuscany by their abolition. We have nothing to apprehend, then, from this measure; and if any ill effects should follow the experiment, it is but too easy to return to the system of extermination. One argument, the ferocious character impressed on the people by this punishment, which was insisted on in the first report,-has been so strongly illustrated by a subsequent event in Pennsylvania, that I cannot omit stating it. After the execution of Lechler had gratified the people about York and Lancaster with the spectacle of his death, and had produced its proper complement of homicide and other crimes, a poor wretch was condemned to suffer the same fate, for a similar offence, in another part of the State, where the people had not yet been indulged with such a spectacle. They, also, collected by thousands and tens of thousands. The victim was brought out. All the eyes, in the living mass that surrounded the gibbet, were fixed on his countenance; and they waited, with strong desire, the expected signal for launching him into eternity.

There was a delay. They grew impatient. It was prolonged, and they were outrageous: cries like those which precede the tardy rising of the curtain, in a theatre, were heard. Impatient for the delight they expected in seeing a fellow-creature die, they raised a ferocious cry. But when it was at last announced that a reprieve had left them no hope of witnessing his agonies, their fury knew no bounds; and the poor maniac, for it was discovered that he was insane, was with difficulty snatched, by the officers of justice, from the fate which the most violent among them seemed determined to inflict.* This is not an overcharged picture: the

same savage feeling has been more than once exhibited, in different parts of the Union, and will always be produced by public executions, unless it is replaced by the equally dangerous feeling of admiration and interest for the sufferer.* Which of the two is to prevail, depends on circumstances totally out of the power of the lawgiver or the judge to foresee, or control; but, by the indulgence of either feeling, every good end of punishment is totally defeated.

I cannot, I ought not to dismiss this subject, without once more pressing on the most serious consideration of the Legislature, an argument which every new view of it convinces me is important, and, if we listen to the voice of conscience, conclusive,—the irremediable nature of this punishment. Until men acquire new faculties, and are enabled to decide upon innocence or guilt without the aid of fallible and corruptible human evidence, so long will the risk be incurred of condemning the innocent. Were the consequence felt as deeply as it ought to be, would there be an advocate for that punishment which, applied in such case, has all the consequences of the most atrocious murder to the innocent sufferers,-worse than the worst murderer! He stabs, or strikes, or poisons, and the victim dies, he dies unconscious of the blow, without being made a spectacle to satisfy ferocious curiosity, and without the torture of leaving his dearest friends doubtful of his innocence, or seeing them abandon him under he conviction of his guilt. He dies, and his death is like one of those inevitable chances to which all mortals are subject. His family are distressed, but not dishonored; his death is lamented by his friends, and, if his life deserved it, honored by his country. But the death inflicted by the laws,-the murder of the innocent under its holy forms,-has no such mitigating circumstances. Slow in its approach, uncertain in its stroke, its victim feels not only the sickness of the heart that arises from the alternation of hope and fear, until his doom is pronounced; but when that becomes inevitable,-alone, the tenant of a dungeon during every moment that the lenity of the law prolongs his life, he is made to feel all those anticipations, worse than a thousand deaths. The consciousness of innocence, that which is our support under other miseries, is here converted into a source of bitter anguish, when it is found to be no protection from infamy and death; and when the ties which connected him to his countries, and as melancholy proofs of the feeble operation of try, his friends, his family, are torn asunder, no

human heart, against the folly and cruelty of public punish

ments.

"I shall conclude this inquiry by observing, that the same false religion and philosophy which once kindled the fire on the altar of persecution, now dooms the criminal to public ignominy and death. In proportion as the principles of philosophy and Christianity are understood, they will agree in extinguishing the one and destroying the other. If these principles continue to extend their influence upon government, as they have done for some time past, I cannot help entertaining a hope, that the time is not very distant, when the gallows, the pillory, the stocks, the whippingpost, and the wheel-barrow, (the usual engines of public

punishment,) will be connected with the history of the rack and the stake, as marks of the barbarity of ages and coun

reason and religion on the human mind."-Inquiry upon Public Punishments.

*This disgraceful scene took place at Orwigsburgh. The wretched madman, who was so near suffering, was named Zimmerman. I have the details from a gentleman of the first respectability in Pennsylvania. My informant adds to his account of this transaction-" Executions in this State are scenes of riot, and every species of wickedness; twenty, thirty, and forty thousand persons have been in attendance, on such occasions. In country parts, two and even three days are employed in the merry-making, much after the manner of fairs in former times."

The tendency of public executions, at times, to elevate the sufferer to the honors of saintship, and lose the detests. tion due to his crime in admiration for the piety of the new convert, is not confined to the United States. The scene described in the first report, of the execution of the mailrobbers at Baltimore, has been represented in other countries. A note to that part of the report, in a German translation, says-" One would think that the author was an eyewitness to the execution of the murderer Jonas, in this place,-so exactly is the scene described."

than to add one more example to the many that preceded it of the danger, and I may add impiety, of using this attribute of the divine power, without the infallibility that can alone properly direct it. And this objection alone, did none of the other cogent reasons against capital punment exist,-this alone would make me hail the decree for its abolition as an event, so honorable to my country, and so consoling to humanity, as to be cheaply purchased by the labor of a life.

consoling reflection mitigates the misery of that moment. He leaves unmerited infamy to his children; a name stamped with dishonor to their surviving parent, and bows down the gray heads of his own with sorrow to the grave. As he walks from his dungeon, he sees the thousands who have come to gaze on his last agony: he mounts the fatal tree, and a life of innocence is closed by a death of dishonor. This is no picture of the imagination. Would to God it were! Would to God that, if death must be inflicted, some sure means might be discovered I cannot quit this part of the subject without of making it fall upon the guilty. These things submitting to the general assembly the opinion have happened. These legal murders have of one whose authority would justify an experibeen committed! and who were the primary ment even more hazardous than this, but whose causes of the crime? Who authorized a pun- arguments are as convincing as his name is reishment which, once inflicted, could never be spectable. They are not the opinions of one remitted to the innocent? Who tied the cord, whom the cant, which is used to cover the igor let fall the axe upon the guiltless head? Not norance of the day, would call a theorist, but the executioner, the vile instrument who is of a man whose whole life was spent in the usehired to do the work of death,-not the jury ful and honorable functions of the highest mawho convict, or the judge who condemns,-not gistracy, whose name is always mentioned with the law which sanctions these errors; but the reverence, and whose doctrines are quoted as legislators who made the law,-those who, hav-authority, wherever the true principles of legal ing the power, did not repeal it. These are knowledge are regarded. Hear the venerable the persons responsible to their country, their D'Aguesseau :consciences, and their God. These horrors not only have happened, but they must be repeated: the same causes will produce the same effects. The innocent have suffered the death of the guilty: the innocent will suffer. We know it. The horrible truth stares us in the face. We dare not deny, and cannot evade it. A word, while it saves the innocent, will secure the punishment of the guilty; and shall we hesitate to pronounce it? Shall we content ourselves with our own imagined exemption from this fate, and shut our ears to the cries of justice and humanity? Shall "sensibility (as has been finely observed) sleep in the lap of luxury," and not awake at the voice of wretchedness? I urge this point with more earnestness, because I have witnessed more than one condemnation under false instructions of law, or perjured, or mistaken testimony:-sentences that would now have been reversed, if the unfortunate sufferers were within the reach of mercy. I have seen, in the gloom and silence of the dungeon, the deep concentrated expression of indignation which contended with grief; have heard the earnest asseverations of innocence, made in tones which no art could imitate; and listened with awe to The earnestness for this reform is sometimes the dreadful adjuration, poured forth by one of reproached to its advocates as proceeding from these victims, with an energy and solemnity a childish fear, that magnifies the apprehension that seemed superhuman, summoning his false of that which we know is appointed to us all. accuser and his mistaken judge to meet him be- Not so. The value of life is not overrated in fore the throne of God. Such an appeal to the the argument. There are occasions in which high tribunal which never errs, and before the risk of its loss must be incurred; in which which he who made it was in a few hours to the certainty of death must be encountered appear, was calculated to create a belief of his with firmness and composure. These occasions innocence: that belief was changed into cer- are presented by patriotism, in defence of our tainty. The perjury of the witness was discov-country and our country's rights,-by benevoered, and he fled from the infamy that awaited lence, in the rescue of another from danger,him; but it was too late for any other effect, by religion, whenever persecution offers the

Eden. Principles of Penal Law.

"Who would believe that a first impression may sometimes decide the question of life and death? A fatal mass of circumstances, which seem as if fate had collected them together, for the ruin of an unfortunate wretch, -a crowd of mute witnesses, (and from that character more dangerous,) depose against innocence: they prejudice the judge; his indignation is roused; his zeal contributes to seduce him. Losing the character of the judge in that of the accuser, he looks only to that which is evidence of guilt, and he sacrifices to his own reasonings the man whom he would have saved had he listened only to the proofs of the law. An unforeseen event sometimes shows that innocence has sunk under the weight of conjectures, and falsifies the conclusions which circumstances had induced the magistrate to draw. Truth lifts up the veil with which probability had enveloped her; but she appears too late! The blood of the innocent cries aloud for vengeance against the prejudice of his judge; and the magistrate passes the rest of his life deploring a misfortune which his REPENTANCE CANNOT REPAIR."*

* D'Aguesseau, 16 Mercuriale.

SAMUEL DEXTER.

Samuel Dexter was a native of Boston, Massachusetts, where he was born in the year 1761. His father, Samuel senior, a descendant of Richard Dexter, who emigrated from England to America, a short time after the landing at Plymouth, was an active supporter of the patriotic cause, prior to the Revolution, and for his eminent services was several times elected by the colonial House of Representatives to the Council; and for the same reasons as often rejected by the royal governor. Finally, however, he was permitted to take his scat; but, in 1774 was again negatived, in company with Bowdoin and others, by the " express commands of his Majesty." It is recorded that he took part in the preparation of the celebrated answers to the Governor's speeches, and the various state papers of that period; which have so long been the theme of admiration for their eloquence and their firm and bold tone of remonstrance against the oppressive measures of the British ministry.* "Soon after the commencement of the revolutionary war," says Doctor Holmes, "he removed, with his family, to Woodstock, Connecticut. He had a large library, which attracted much attention, at the time of its removal, and he was greatly devoted to the use of it, in his retirement, to the close of his life. He was a gentleman of a highly respectable character, possessed a handsome estate, and enjoyed far beyond most literary men, in our country, otium cum dignitate. The latter part of his life was spent in the investigation of the doctrines of theology; which resulted in the establishment, by his will, of a professorship of Sacred Literature in Harvard University. He died, at Mendon, in Massachusetts, on the 10th of June, 1810. Hannah, the wife of this excellent man, and the mother of the subject of this sketch, was the daughter Andrew and Mary Sigourney, and a descendant of André Sigourney, one of those Huguenots who fled from France to America on the revocation of the edict of Nantes. She is described as "a respectable lady, of dark complexion, with characteristic French features and pronunciation;" peculiarities which her distinguished son inherited. Of her, as well as of his honored father, that son always spoke with reverenco and affection.

At the age of sixteen years Samuel Dexter, the junior, entered Harvard University, and in 1781, graduated with the highest honors of his class. During his junior year he delivered a poem on the Progress of Science, "which was at that time," says Judge Story, "received with great applause, and is still (1816) considered as highly creditable to his taste and judgment." § After leaving college he studied law in the office of the Honorable Levi Lincoln, an eminent counsellor of that period, and subsequently Lieutenant Governor of Massachusetts. In due time

* Wheaton's Life of William Pinkney, page 141.

+ Appendix to Doctor Holmes's Memoir of the French Protestants who settled at Oxford, Massachusetts, A. D. 1686, &c., in the Massachusetts Historical Collections. Third series, vol. 2, page 79.

Mr. Dexter was, at one time, engaged in the defence of some foreign sailors, who were on trial in Rhode Island, for piracy. During the trial he had occasion to confer with them repeatedly; and a Quaker, to whom he was personally unknown, observed to a friend, when Mr. Dexter commenced his argument-"How well he speaketh our language!" mistaking him for one of the foreigners, arguing in behalf of himself and his associates.-Sketches of Samuel Dexter by Mr. Sargent.

§ Sketch of the Life and Character of Samuel Dexter, by Judge Story. Miscellaneous Writings, page 782.