The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. / Interviews

by Robert Green Ingersoll

I have said this much to show that I regard criminals as unfortunates. Most people regard those who violate the law with hatred. They do not take into consideration the circumstances. They do not believe that man is perpetually acted upon. They throw out of consideration the effect of poverty, of necessity, and above all, of opportunity. For these reasons they regard criminals with feelings of revenge. They wish to see them punished. They want them imprisoned or hanged. They do not think the law has been vindicated unless somebody has been outraged. I look at these things from an entirely different point of view. I regard these people who are in the clutches of the law not only as unfortunates, but, for the most part, as victims. You may call them victims of nature, or of nations, or of governments; it makes no difference, they are victims. Under the same circumstances the very persons who punish them would be punished. But whether the criminal is a victim or not, the honest man, the industrious man, has the right to defend the product of his labor. He who sows and plows should be allowed to reap, and he who endeavors to take from him his harvest is what we call a criminal; and it is the business of society to protect the honest from the dishonest.

Without taking into account whether the man is or is not responsible, still society has the right of self-defence. Whether that right of self-defence goes to the extent of taking life, depends, I imagine, upon the circumstances in which society finds itself placed. A thousand men on a ship form a society. If a few men should enter into a plot for the destruction of the ship, or for turning it over to pirates, or for poisoning and plundering the most of the passengers—if the passengers found this out certainly they would have the right of self-defence. They might not have the means to confine the conspirators with safety. Under such circumstances it might be perfectly proper for them to destroy their lives and to throw their worthless bodies into the sea. But what society has the right to do depends upon the circumstances. Now, in my judgment, society has the right to do two things—to protect itself and to do what it can to reform the individual. Society has no right to take revenge; no right to torture a convict; no right to do wrong because some individual has done wrong. I am opposed to all corporal punishment in penitentiaries. I am opposed to anything that degrades a criminal or leaves upon him an unnecessary stain, or puts upon him any stain that he did not put upon himself.

Most people defend capital punishment on the ground that the man ought to be killed because he has killed another. The only real ground for killing him, even if that be good, is not that he has killed, but that he may kill. What he has done simply gives evidence of what he may do, and to prevent what he may do, instead of to revenge what he has done, should be the reason given.

Now, there is another view. To what extent does it harden the community for the Government to take life? Don't people reason in this way: That man ought to be killed; the Government, under the same circumstances, would kill him, therefore I will kill him? Does not the Government feed the mob spirit—the lynch spirit? Does not the mob follow the example set by the Government? The Government certainly cannot say that it hangs a man for the purpose of reforming him. Its feelings toward that man are only feelings of revenge and hatred. These are the same feelings that animate the lowest and basest mob.

Let me give you an example. In the city of Bloomington, in the State of Illinois, a man confined in the jail, in his efforts to escape, shot and, I believe, killed the jailer. He was pursued, recaptured, brought back and hanged by a mob. The man who put the rope around his neck was then under indictment for an assault to kill and was out on bail, and after the poor wretch was hanged another man climbed the tree and, in a kind of derision, put a piece of cigar between the lips of the dead man. The man who did this had also been indicted for a penitentiary offence and was then out on bail.

I mention this simply to show the kind of people you find in mobs. Now, if the Government had a greater and nobler thought; if the Government said: "We will reform; we will not destroy; but if the man is beyond reformation we will simply put him where he can do no more harm," then, in my judgment, the effect would be far better. My own opinion is, that the effect of an execution is bad upon the community—degrading and debasing. The effect is to cheapen human life; and, although a man is hanged because he has taken human life, the very fact that his life is taken by the Government tends to do away with the idea that human life is sacred.

Let me give you an illustration. A man in the city of Washington went to Alexandria, Va., for the purpose of seeing a man hanged who had murdered an old man and a woman for the purpose of getting their money. On his return from that execution he came through what is called the Smithsonian grounds. This was on the same day, late in the evening. There he met a peddler, whom he proceeded to murder for his money. He was arrested in a few hours, in a little while was tried and convicted, and in a little while was hanged. And another man, present at this second execution, went home on that same day, and, in passing by a butcher-shop near his house, went in, took from the shop a cleaver, went into his house and chopped his wife's head off.

This, I say, throws a little light upon the effect of public executions. In the Cignarale case, of course the sentence should have been commuted. I think, however, that she ought not to be imprisoned for life. From what I read of the testimony I think she should have been pardoned.

It is hard, I suppose, for a man fully to understand and enter into the feelings of a wife who has been trampled upon, abused, bruised, and blackened by the man she loved—by the man who made to her the vows of eternal affection. The woman, as a rule, is so weak, so helpless. Of course, it does not all happen in a moment. It comes on as the night comes. She notices that he does not act quite as affectionately as he formerly did. Day after day, month after month, she feels that she is entering a twilight. But she hopes that she is mistaken, and that the light will come again. The gloom deepens, and at last she is in midnight—a midnight without a star. And this man, whom she once worshiped, is now her enemy— one who delights to trample upon every sentiment she has—who delights in humiliating her, and who is guilty of a thousand nameless tyrannies. Under these circumstances, it is hardly right to hold that woman accountable for what she does. It has always seemed to me strange that a woman so circumstanced—in such fear that she dare not even tell her trouble—in such fear that she dare not even run away—dare not tell a father or a mother, for fear that she will be killed—I say, that in view of all this, it has always seemed strange to me that so few husbands have been poisoned.

The probability is that society raises its own criminals. It plows the land, sows the seed, and harvests the crop. I believe that the shadow of the gibbet will not always fall upon the earth. I believe the time will come when we shall know too much to raise criminals—know too much to crowd those that labor into the dens and dungeons that we call tenements, while the idle live in palaces. The time will come when men will know that real progress means the enfranchisement of the whole human race, and that our interests are so united, so interwoven, that the few cannot be happy while the many suffer; so that the many cannot be happy while the few suffer; so that none can be happy while one suffers. In other words, it will be found that the human race is interested in each individual. When that time comes we will stop producing criminals; we will stop producing failures; we will not leave the next generation to chance; we will not regard the gutter as a proper nursery for posterity.