Such a community would be self-supporting. Let women of the same class be put by themselves. Keep the sexes absolutely apart. Those who are beyond the power of reformation should not have the liberty to reproduce themselves. Those who cannot be reached by kindness—by justice—those who under no circumstances are willing to do their share, should be separated. They should dwell apart, and dying, should leave no heirs.
What shall be done with the slayers of their fellow-men—with murderers? Shall the nation take life?
It has been contended that the death penalty deters others—that it has far more terror than imprisonment for life. What is the effect of the example set by a nation? Is not the tendency to harden and degrade not only those who inflict and those who witness, but the entire community as well?
A few years ago a man was hanged in Alexandria, Virginia. One who witnessed the execution, on that very day, murdered a peddler in the Smithsonian grounds at Washington. He was tried and executed, and one who witnessed his hanging went home, and on the same day murdered his wife.
The tendency of the extreme penalty is to prevent conviction. In the presence of death it is easy for a jury to find a doubt. Technicalities become important, and absurdities, touched with mercy, have the appearance for a moment of being natural and logical. Honest and conscientious men dread a final and irrevocable step. If the penalty were imprisonment for life, the jury would feel that if any mistake were made it could be rectified; but where the penalty is death a mistake is fatal. A conscientious man takes into consideration the defects of human nature—the uncertainty of testimony, and the countless shadows that dim and darken the understanding, and refuses to find a verdict that, if wrong, cannot be righted.
The death penalty, inflicted by the Government, is a perpetual excuse for mobs.
The greatest danger in a Republic is a mob, and as long as States inflict the penalty of death, mobs will follow the example. If the State does not consider life sacred, the mob, with ready rope, will strangle the suspected. The mob will say: "The only difference is in the trial; the State does the same—we know the man is guilty—why should time be wasted in technicalities?" In other words, why may not the mob do quickly that which the State does slowly?
Every execution tends to harden the public heart—tends to lessen the sacredness of human life. In many States of this Union the mob is supreme. For certain offences the mob is expected to lynch the supposed criminal. It is the duty of every citizen—and as it seems to me especially of every lawyer—to do what he can to destroy the mob spirit. One would think that men would be afraid to commit any crime in a community where the mob is in the ascendency, and yet, such are the contradictions and subtleties of human nature, that it is exactly the opposite. And there is another thing in this connection—the men who constitute the mob are, as a rule, among the worst, the lowest, and the most depraved.
A few years ago, in Illinois, a man escaped from jail, and, in escaping, shot the sheriff. He was pursued, overtaken—lynched. The man who put the rope around his neck was then out on bail, having been indicted for an assault to murder. And after the poor wretch was dead, another man climbed the tree from which he dangled and, in derision, put a cigar in the mouth of the dead; and this man was on bail, having been indicted for larceny.
Those who are the fiercest to destroy and hang their fellow-men for having committed crimes, are, for the most part, at heart, criminals themselves.