“Punishments are cruel when they involve torture or a lingering death; but the punishment of death is not cruel, within the meaning of that word as used in the Constitution.”—136U. S. 436.
A warden of a State penitentiary was recently found guilty of inflicting cruel punishment because he punished a convict by suspending his body from chains placed around his wrists.
The British Museum contains several machines of torture used to punish criminals in early days. One is a machine in the form of a hollow case fitting a human form. This case is filled with sharp spikes driven through from the outside. The machine was so constructed that when a victim was placed inside, the sides could be gradually turned up to fit the body and press these spikes into the body of the victim so as to produce death.
Another machine is constructed much as a cross in form of the letter X. The victim was fastened in such manner as to bind his wrists and ankles to the ends of the bars. A horse was then hitched to either his arms or legs and they were torn from the body.
Many States in the United States have now adopted electrocution as the means of inflicting the death penalty because it is believed to be the most humane way.
Constitution of the United States, Amendment XIII, Sec. 1.
This amendment was submitted to the States by resolution of Congress in 1865 and by proclamation of the President of December 18th of that year was declared to have received the approval of the requisite number of States.
So far as the abolition of slavery is involved there has been no question as to the effect of the amendment, but as to what constitutes involuntary servitude important questions have arisen. While the primary object of the amendment was to free the colored race, the general purpose was to render impossible the existence within the jurisdiction of the United States of any legal or social institution imposing involuntary labor on any class of persons. The introduction here of the peonage system prevalent in Mexico, the coolie system of China, or the padrone system of Italy fall within the prohibition.
The amendment permits imprisonment and also involuntary servitude as a penalty for failure to pay a fine imposed as a punishment. Moreover the services of persons imprisoned for crime belong to the State and may be leased, subject of course to humanitarian regulations as to the method in which such services may be employed.
Under the enforcement clause Congress has legislated against peonage, that is, a condition of enforced servitude by which the servitor is restrained of his liberty and compelled to labor in liquidation of some contract, debt, or obligation. But without such legislation, State statutes imposing imprisonment or servitude for non-performance of contractual obligations are invalid as in conflict with the provisions of the amendment.—Emlin McClain, in the Cyclopedia of American Government, Vol. III, p. 536.