and there burn him to ashes. Let our authors tell us now, was this fire called down from heaven? Will they derive a lesson of political wisdom from such a scene as this? from such a manifestation of man's indignation against crime? If not, let them take heed how they reason from the same indignation in their own hearts. If they would not reap the whirlwind, let them take heed how they sow the wind.

The judge who decided upon the merits of the burning above referred to, held it to be a case of justifiable homicide! Public opinion, said he, is the source and fountain of all human law; and the act in question was a clear expression of public opinion. Now, if men are to be punished for the intrinsic demerit of their conduct, a query might be raised, whether the judge who delivered such an opinion should not be punished capitally, as well as the negro who had been so barbarously put to death by the mob. And yet, on the principles of Dr. Cheever's philosophy, the judge might have given a sound opinion, in releasing the murderers of the black man. He might have delivered the following learned opinion:

"An outrageous murder has been committed. This is the greatest of all possible

crimes. The moral sentiments of the com

munity have been outraged; the criminal has been seized and put to death by the prisoners at the bar. These facts are clearly in evidence. There can be no doubt with respect to the principles of law applicable to them. The great end of the law is the administration of" simple justice in view of desert." [See Cheever's Defence of Capital Punishment-p. 188.] This being the end of the law, the question arises, has any injustice been done? It is an established principle, that the murderer deserves to die; [see Cheever's Defence;] and hence, in putting him to death, the prisoners at the bar have done nothing more than a simple act of justice. Now, it would be a monstrous thing to condemn them to an ignominious death for doing a simple act of justice; instead of upholding the great end of the law, it would subvert it from its very foundation.

"It may be said that they have taken the law into their own hands; and for this they should be punished. This is plausible, but superficial. It springs from low and narrow views of expediency. That the murderer deserves to be put to death, is the law of God written on the heart." [See Cheever's Defence-p. 178.] This

is the Supreme law; expediency is merely a subordinate rule, and should always give place to the simple and awful dictates of justice. In putting the murderer to death, therefore, they have acted in obedience to anticipated the sentence of the law of the the law and voice of God; and merely land.

"It has been urged, by learned counsel, that the good of society requires all mobviolence to be punished; but this principle can apply only where injustice has been done. If mobs trample under foot the great principles of justice, they ought to be punished; but not when they do justice. in this case; and when " And besides, the punishment was deserved deserved, it cannot but be useful." [See punishment is Cheever's Defence.] And even if it were not useful, who would allow the dictates of justice to be sacrificed to utility, or the glory of conscience to the low rule of expediency?

is bound to decide this case according to "It has been contended that the court · the law as it is, without reference to its end; but this is a grave mistake. Many authorities have been produced to this effect, and we cannot deny that they are great authorities; but yet we conceive that the doctrine is obsolete. It is now settled, by a modern authority which is not to be questioned, that the court is to be guided by the end of the law. If expediency is the determining rule in the enactment of laws, then, if the court clearly sees a thing to be expedient, it must act accordingly. [See Cheever's Defence-p. 188.] Hence, if simple "justice in view of desert," is the ground and reason of the law, then courts of justice are to be governed by what they clearly see to be just. The court, in the present case, very clearly sees that the negro deserved to die, and his death was therefore just. No court of justice will ever condemn a simple act of written on the heart. The world has been justice. It will obey the law of God darkened and confounded long enough by systems of expediency. The age of pure reason has dawned. Let the prisoners be discharged."

The learned opinion we have just heard, clearly establishes the position that Dr. Cheever does not exactly understand the relation between the absolute and the expedient. The expedient should never violate the absolute. No law of man should ever contravene the dictates of conscience, should ever conflict with the law of nature or the law of God. And when human laws, founded in expediency, have been enacted, obedience to them is binding on

the conscience; they are clothed with the sanction of the divine law. There is one distinction, and a most important distinction, which both of our authors uniformly disregard; and without which, we will venture to affirm, there can be no clear and comprehensive views on the subject under consideration. They do not distinguish between crime as the pre-requisite to punishment, and the intrinsic demerit of crime as the ground and reason of punishment: between crime, as that without which the good of society does not require, but forbids, the infliction of suffering and crime as that which in its own nature deserves to be punished. Hence, they continually argue, as if the doctrine of expediency, as the sole foundation of human laws,betrays an indifference to crime and moral distinctions. They might as well condemn the common law itself, because, in the words of a great judge, it says to the criminal, "you are not put to death because you have stolen a horse, but in order that horses may not be stolen."

In reasoning about government, whether parental, or civil, or divine, we should be careful to notice their differences, as well as their points of resemblance. Interminable confusion has arisen from the neglect of this precaution. By passing from one kind of government to another, as if principles and ideas, which have only names in common, were really the same, and overlooking important differences, reasoners have involved the subject of government, both human and divine, in no little perplexity and darkness. Professor Lewis has grievously sinned in this way; he has spared himself much laborious thought, and shut himself out from much important light with respect to laws, by continually repeating the assertion, that the "fundamental ideas of law and justice are every where the same." But to explore this fruitful source of error, and trace out its results in the works of learned authors, would carry us far beyond our present limits. Indeed, it might well occupy a volume.

We shall, by the way, notice only one or two mistakes into which this source of error has betrayed philosophers, as well as those who are no philosophers. The chief end of parental government is reformation and

improvement. Now, this idea has been carried up into the sphere of civil government by many reasoners, who have contended that it is the great end of penal law to reform the offender This error is usually followed and supported by another, namely, the error of erecting the rules of private conduct into maxims of public justice. They often apply these principles and precepts-those, for example, which enjoin brotherly-love and the forgiveness of injuries, in such a manner that, if carried, they would dissolve all government, and leave the weak and harmless exposed to the tender mercies and brotherly-love of the strong and evil. Dymond is full of this error; it constitutes the great blemish of his Essays. It may be styled the sophistry of benevolent feeling, of which Dy. mond had sufficient to blind his excellent judgment; it is frequently adopted, however, and paraded about as a great evidence of superior humanity, by persons who have but little benevolence, and still less judgment.

There is an error precisely the opposite of this. It prevailed among the Jews: many of whom converted the maxims of public law into rules for private conduct. Thus, by pleading in justification of their private conduct the public law, "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," they sought to cover up, under the semblance of justice, their own unhallowed spirit of resentment. This may be defined the sophistry of a vindictive temper. It presents a striking analogy to the error of those, who would grasp the awful power of retributive justice, and drag it down from the high and holy sphere to which it belongs, into the lower region of human polity; thereby giving to earthly rulers, under the notion of a divine right, full power and authority, not only to protect society against aggression and wrong, but also to punish whatever they, in their wisdom or in their folly, in their goodness or in their malice, may view as moral guilt.

We regret that the zeal of our authors for divine truth has not been according to knowledge; because we believe it has led them to inflict a serious injury upon that truth as well as upon the cause they have undertaken to support. It is no wonder that the human mind should shrink from the

cause of capital punishment, when it is found to be dependent upon such a principle as that to which our attention has been directed. The best way to cause a truth to be rejected, is to bind it up with insufferable errors. We regret, therefore, that the cause of capital punishment has been defended on a principle, which cannot fail, in many cases, to call up the sternest powers of resistance in the human soul. The law which condemns a human being to death, should be perfectly free from the least appearance of revenge or vengeance.

The majesty of human law consists in this, that it is perfectly passionless; seeking, with a calm, stern, and inflexible purpose the good of all-a purpose which no resistance can shake, and which no pity can subdue. Which no pity can subdue, because it is pity itself, enlightened by the universal intelligence, and loving the whole better than any of its parts. It is an awful power; it is the severity of goodness itself. The passions of the wicked are prone to misconceive it; let not the passions of the wise misrepresent it. It is not retributive; it is purely remedial. If it could only be seen by all the world as it is in itself-as it is in its own naked and severe majesty-stripped of all the disguises of human passion and infirmity, and arrayed in the beams of a universal goodness, we are persuaded it would exercise a power and a control which it has not been accustomed to exert.

We shall now take leave of our authors. We have no doubt that they

have been perfectly conscientious in their labors; but, being deeply impressed with the conviction that they had, in a philosophical point of view, committed a grave offence, by placing the right and duty of government to punish on the wrong ground, we have felt called upon to make a decided protest. In so far as that ground is false, we have endeavored to expose its fallacy, as well as the fallacy of the assumptions in support of it. We have done this in all good faith, and with all earnestness, but without impugning any man's motives; because we had rather suffer capital punishment ourselves, than to see the principle against which we have contended introduced into the penal jurisprudence of the country. But, as we have dwelt upon only one feature of the book, and that by far the most obnoxious one, so we feel bound to say, in conclusion, that the book is well worthy of a perusal. Both of our authors frequently write with great force and beauty. Though they have continued to instil some deadly poison into their philosophy, yet we rejoice to believe it contains much wholesome nutriment. Let it be read, therefore, especially by those who have first digested this our antidote to its poison, and by those who are raised above its influence. For though we believe they have committed a grievous offence, we would by no means punish them capitally, but only in so far as we have deemed it expedient, in order to promote their reformation and the public good.

EVIL collects in pools and stagnates, and America is offended in its nostrils by rank odors of Mormonism, Abolitionism, Unnativism, and all varieties of social and political isms.

Mark a scene. These Mormonsshoot, hang, no quarter! drive, drive, over snow-fields and ice-fields, over prairies and through forests-away with them! covered or naked, warm

from soft beds and bright firesides, barefooted or shodden. What though the blood, fresh, warm blood is fast lapped by absorbent snows, and freezes in thick clots on hard ice, as it spirts and falls from the lacerated and swollen limbs and feet of tender women and children! - drive them out!-away, over rivers bridged with ice, over prairies, now a snow desert, waste and

wild, drear and chill-Away with them forth from our communities, for they are given to all evil, in thousands, in great strength given to all evil. Crimes have been committed among us; they are the evil-doers. We know it, because-they have a new religion and worship to a strange doctrine, and believe in things strange to us, that are not ours, nor our belief, and cannot be true; and all believing therein must be wicked.

Drive again!-but hold, here are sick-bring them forth, lay them tenderly on their beds here on the earth, while the warmth of their burning houses dries up the deadly night-dews standing on their clammy faces. Bring them forth, but treat them tenderly, the poor sick.

A

Another evil. Shall these, but yesterday, strangers to our soil, united by the strong bond of their religionwhich is not our religion-shall these aliens and citizens of a day, take root, and grow and thrive and become strong, and take much power into their hands, and enjoy what we enjoy, not being of us, not native with us, nor of our creed?

Equality of freedom and rights to all! Liberality! an asylum for the oppressed of all nations-open to all, to come and taste herein of the sweets of liberty! Men, freedom-loving, freedom-worthy souls, like ourselves! No! not worthy as we, the chosen, the smiled-upon by liberty, the from birth sons of freedom. These rights-political are ours exclusively, the heritage of we, the native-born.

Away! ring the bells! burn the churches! music and bonfires! rejoicings over the destruction of the property of the worshippers by an evil politico-religious creed. A great city, an orderly city must not harbor such an evil.

The laws will not cure it-down with it, fellow-citizens-wash it out in the blood of the false-worshippers, freedom-grasping aliens-smother it in their ashes!

Again-what is this? A press! a seditious press vomiting forth volumes of opinion of free state opinion against slave-state opinion. We shall be brought to discord, disunion, destruction.

This must not be. It will not take

itself off, away from us-this press, this publisher, this disseminator of evil, of ruinous doctrines. It professes to be strong in its sense of its own right-is fierce in opposition-bold in promulgation. Fool-hardy press! the laws menace it not, and we must destroy it.

He, the master spirit, the arch demon-down with him! Ah, ha! his blood cleanses our soil of the stain of his pernicious, his seditious doctrines.

In truth he was a fool, that Lovejoy; but wherefore kill a fool? The laws menaced him not. No, those laws would not trammel opinion, and do permit free discussion on all points of political and religious policy and opinion. And wise laws they are for so doing; and they were framed by wise spirits and good-such as times and times again rise up out of the depths of the eternal.

Reprobate, and let every good man, as every wise man will, set his face firmly, and let his tongue speak reasonably on all proper occasions, that so it may be disseminated among his fellow men, against all attempts by violence to put down what many, or the majority, may consider a growing evil in a community. If it be said, that thing is fast gaining strength, multitudes are joining themselves to it, soon or late it will be the strongest, and then all our present good will be swallowed up therein; our present institutions will be overturned if we do not put this thing down by force, for the laws will not yet take it in hand.

Do not so. You have laws for your protection, made sufficient by the good sense and judgment of men, men preceding you, and men contemporaneous. When these fanatics of religious belief, or these monomaniacs of political or social regeneration shall have overstepped the limits of the laws, let justice be dealt out unto them, and punishment wrought upon their delinquent heads.

But again it is said, they will get the ascendancy and will remodel the law, and if they choose they may exceed the law and defy all law; they will pull down all, and then we will be in chaos, or in a state of subjection to evil governance.

Know ye first that ye are right, and these are wrong? Yes, what they

would subvert are based upon fixed principles which cannot be questioned as facts. Well then, fear not. Let them on, in God's name let them on. Let all others on, and let all discuss and each bruit its own. Let all the elements war and clash, and rage and storm. Out of the depths of all this commotion, and out of this chaos will arise good. Truth will be developed; for is not justice eternal, and is it not lying there under all, and will it not rise and put forth its strength when these elements shall have frothed and worked? Leave the bung out of the new wine cask, it after becomes clear, fine.

Sense, common sense, good sense, is it not alive in mankind, and will it not vindicate the right and conquer what you dread? It will be the agent with which justice, yes justice, eternal and powerful, will work. Then all settles upon justice, all rests upon the eternal truth, and what we only want is faith, yes, faith in the eternal existence, the ever ready to act presence of justice.

But must we then sit idle, and consider all as but opinion whilst the evil progresses?

Yes; sit idle, idle with your hands, idle from cutting each others throats, and consider opinion, and discuss opinion, and wield the weapon of sense, common sense; but at the bottom of all have faith, faith. Faith in justice, faith in its acting, faith in truth.

One thing it is for Frenchmen, for Englishmen to achieve their rights. Ours is another thing. Justice the eternal, the strong, the ever good, has for us already achieved the first step, le premier pas, ce qui conte. Already are our institutions formed on the basis of sense. Right. This has already the dominion, this right, this good, and this people are its subjects. What though the evil here and there in filth stagnates and is fœted, and in rank odors diseases? The clouds gather, the drenching comes on in pure clear water, clear as truth-Good is cleanly washing away evil, wrong, mistakes, prejudice.

--

We will not do so good a thing, so pure; our muddy nature yields no clear spring of truth, goodness-we are not man-loving.

No, not as God loves, but more manloving than those Frenchmen, those Englishmen. We have gained the first step. Justice has dominion, and if we have faith we shall be man-loving and God-loving more and more.

Faith in what? Faith in good over evil, in right over wrong. In the eternal life and unslumbering power of justice. These souls, replete with the sense which wrought this first step of ours,-they falter not, they will never succumb to the dominion of wrong, and they die not, but live on in bright souls of those who inherit their wisdom. There are many of these bright souls among us, and having done so much can do more.

And this is not strictly the first step of all, for many steps had been worked out, some silently, some noisily, from time and through time long gone and now in oblivion. This is rather the first round visible to dimmed vision of unconquering despairers in the ladder of works, whose base rests far, far back, all enveloped in the mists of eternity, on the outstretched hand of the naked Adam just awaking to conscious life in a paradisean bower.

Looking back upon all this to which we here have already attained, or which has been achieved for us in this step and its concomitants, this well-spring from which flow forth in thousand little clear streams so many advantages, all so many goods, so many triumphant fighters of evil-can we look upon all these and not feel sure of more to come? Here in their works is evidence abundant of what strong and good spirits have lived to do great things for other men, and what like spirits do live and will live on to do more of the like. Justice can use them yet again and again for eternal purposes, for justice has dominion.