HINTS TO OUR DELEGATES-No. 2

[ September 16, 1846 ]

The executive department of the government of a free state should be framed with jealous circumspection, yet with enlightened liberality. The governor should not be allowed too wide a field for the exercise of his discretion or caprice; neither should he be cramped by restrictions that would make him little better than a automaton.

Four years would, I think, be a proper term for our governor to hold office. A much longer term might make him "forget to remember" that his office was the people's gift; a much shorter term would not be long enough to enable him to give a character to his administration.

He should not be eligible for reëlection for at least four years after the expiration of his term of office, for if he shall be eligible for immediate reëlection, it is nothing more than reasonable to suppose that the power and patronage of the governor will be employed to keep a man in office, and that consequently the executive department will hardly be administered with desirable purity. His compensation should be at least $2,500 per year.

I do not see the necessity of having a lieutenant or subgovernor. Governors or presidents seldom die, and yet less frequently resign or become incapable of holding office. Our governor will certainly, as far as climate is concerned, have as good a chance for life as the president of the United States, or any governor in the Union, and if one dies in half a century it is as much as any gentleman "in the line of safe precedents' can expect.

The death, resignation, or incapacity of the governor should operate as a call for convening the senate forthwith, and as soon as convened they should, without adjourning, choose a governor, whose term of office, however, should be but the unexpired portion of his predecessor's term.

A limited veto power should not be unpopular among a thinking people, although its exercise may sometimes cause displeasure and be even reprehensible, for if the history of the exercise of that "one man power" be reviewed, it must be allowed that it has often proved a most salutary check upon hasty legislation and exemplified the truth of the proverb, "Second thoughts are best."

Our governor should have a limited veto. A bill, etc., to become law without his assent should at least pass the deputies' chamber by a majority of two-thirds of the deputies voting, and the senate by a majority of the whole number of senators.

He should also have a power to pardon, and to remit and commute punishment; and here I would notice a subject which has been of late pretty largely discussed, both in our territory and the neighboring and eastern states; I mean capital punishment.

Without regarding the universal precedent that has been given in all ages of the world, from the earliest period to the present day, and the divine sanction of the punishment of death-it does appear that the world is not yet arrived at that happy epoch, when man will regard the life, liberty, and property of his fellows as sacred; or even to the less desirable (though much to be desired) era when human life will not need the strongest guards that can be set around it.

I am no advocate for a sanguinary code of laws-for a long list of "felonies by statute." Death should never be inflicted by man upon his fellow, except as a penalty for the commission of the darkest atrocity; but it would be highly impolitic by the entire abolition of capital punishment to deprive life of that adamantine safeguard it has always possessed in every creature-fear of death.

Ut poena ad paucos, meta ad omnes perveniat.* It is said that perpetual imprisonment is worse than death-that incarceration for life is more to be feared than the scaffold, and I admit that it is so, to many temperaments. But one might

*Though few are punished, the fear of punishment affects all.

as well argue that poverty is worse than death, that to have once honor wounded is worse than death, or that to have "got the mitten" is worse than death. Hundreds-thousands of men who could not

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.bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th' oppressor's wrong, the round [proud] man's contumely,
The pangs of despised [disprised] love, the law's delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of the unworthy takes

have dared to become their own executioners, and rush uncalled to

"That [the] undiscovered country, from whose bourn

Yet no one will contest that the love of life is a principle— an instinct-the strongest in our nature. The prospect of the scaffold has often humbled the most hardened felons. How different would their feelings have been, had they been assured that the laws they had violated could not be enforced by the penalty of death.

It is to be hoped that it will be long before the infliction of that high punishment will be called for in our state; but if, unfortunately, it should ever be deemed necessary for the due maintenance of the laws and the proper administration of justice to pronounce the life of an individual forfeited, no absolute bar should be presented by the constitution.

The fear of imprisonment for life does and always will operate as a preventative of crime; but the fear of death is a stronger and a surer guard: and why should it be dispensed with? Why should a deliberate villain be allowed to plan and perpetrate a capital offense with a full assurance that however aggravated his crime may be he cannot be hanged.

Our sister state, Michigan, has been the first to abolish capital punishment. It was a fearfully important experiment. Let it be fully tested before any other state adopts the

innovation. If no evil consequences result, we can lose nothing by being slow to follow the example. If evil does result, we shall escape it, and profit by the lesson.

ORMOND.

HINTS TO OUR DELEGATES-No. 3

[ September 30, 1846]

There are two classes of statesmen that (I conceive) should have nothing whatever to do in the great work of framing a constitution for a free state. The one adheres to everything old, merely because it is old; and the older it is the better satisfied are they that it should be perpetuated. The other will have nothing but what is new, merely because it is new; and the newer it is, the better satisfied they are with it.

It is not improper to make experiments in law and government, any more than in other sciences, if they are made with sufficient care. The pages of a statute book, however, should be the field for such experiments, not the parchment of a constitution.

If anything improper, impolitic, or inexpedient shall at any time find a place among the statute laws of our state, it will be easy to amend or repeal it; but if crude doctrines, untouched by the test of time and but partially understood, even in their direct bearings, are admitted into our constitution, the body politic may suffer severely before a proper legal remedy can be applied.

The new doctrine advocates are opposed to having the judge appointed by the executive, with the advice and consent of the senate, because (I suppose) it is an old doctrine (though not so old as it ought to be) and is only sanctioned by the example of the United States, Great Britain, France, the Netherlands, and nearly all the most important states of both Europe and America.

It is said that the old plan is imperfect, inexpedient, and antidemocratic-that the executive might be partial, perhaps corrupt, in his appointments-that there would be what is popularly termed "logrolling" in the disapproving or confirmatory action of the senate, and that, therefore, to prevent the possibility of "logrolling" or other sinister management, "the people" should elect their judge.

It would appear that such advocates for the new doctrine forget that our state will not, in fact cannot, be a pure democracy. They speak of having "the people" decide on a matter as though it were possible for all the citizens in the State to assemble at one point and have a pure democratic election.

Such a thing cannot be to suppose it would be absurd. It must therefore be understood that the new doctrine is for the people" to choose their judges not of themselves-not by their own act, but through the intervention or agency of delegates; and I should like to know on what principle it is supposed that "the people" will be more discriminating in choosing delegates to elect a judge to interpret and decide the law than in choosing legislators to make the laws by which the judge as well as their fellow citizens are to be governed.

It is contended that because "the people" are "enlightened," "capable of self-government," etc., that they are "capable of choosing their judges." Granted it is so-"the people" are "capable of self-government," but what is the reason they do not govern themselves? Why do they employ a "governor'?

"The people," too, are capable of making their own laws, but why do they not make them? Why do they send representatives to a legislative assembly, and pay them for doing what they can do themselves?

The people are also capable of choosing their judges, but will they choose them? It is obvious they will not. They will-they must employ delegates or agents, and what agents can they employ with more confidence than the men on whom their suffrages have conferred the highest legislative honors of the state!