On the subject of imprisonment for debt, his views were those of an enlightened philosopher and philanthropist, as will be manifest from the following interesting letter discovered among the papers of the late Thomas Eddy; a name ever to be revered, as among the most honorable, if not the brightest, adorning the annals of humanity. [FN] Mr. Eddy was at the period mentioned, and for years afterward, directing his attention to the subject of prison discipline, and his mind was much occupied on the question of imprisonment for debt. The views of the Mohawk Chieftain were coincident with his own. Both were more than a quarter of a century in advance of public opinion in the United States, in that important feature of English and American jurisprudence; and how much in advance of England, remains to be seen.
[FN] This letter was transcribed by Thomas Eddy, into a volume of Indian documents, speeches &c., collected by him while in the discharge of his duties as an Indian commissioner for certain purposes. He had much intercourse with the Oneida, Stockbridge, and some other tribes of Indians, some forty years ago, and was led to inquiries and exertions for their moral and social improvement.
"Letter from Joseph Brant to—
"My Dear Sir,
"Your letter came safe to hand. To give you entire satisfaction I must, I perceive, enter into the discussion of a subject on which I have often thought. My thoughts were my own, and being so different from the ideas entertained among your people, I should certainly have carried them with me to the grave, had I not received your obliging favor.
"You ask me, then, whether in my opinion civilization is favorable to human happiness? In answer to the question, it may be answered, that there are degrees of civilization, from Cannibals to the most polite of European nations. The question is not, then, whether a degree of refinement is not conducive to happiness; but whether you, or the natives of this land, have obtained this happy medium. On this subject we are at present, I presume, of very different opinions. You will, however, allow me in some respects to have had the advantage of you in forming my sentiments. I was, Sir, born of Indian parents, and lived while a child among those whom you are pleased to call savages; I was afterward sent to live among the white people, and educated at one of your schools; since which period I have been honored much beyond my deserts, by an acquaintance with a number of principal characters both in Europe and America. After all this experience, and after every exertion to divest myself of prejudice, I am obliged to give my opinion in favor of my own people. I will now, as much as I am able, collect together, and set before you, some of the reasons that have influenced my judgment on the subject now before us. In the government you call civilized, the happiness of the people is constantly sacrificed to the splendor of empire. Hence your codes of criminal and civil laws have had their origin; hence your dungeons and prisons. I will not enlarge on an idea so singular in civilized life, and perhaps disagreeable to you, and will only observe, that among us we have no prisons; we have no pompous parade of courts; we have no written laws; and yet judges are as highly revered amongst us as they are among you, and their decisions are as much regarded.
"Property, to say the least, is as well guarded, and crimes are as impartially punished. We have among us no splendid villains above the control of our laws. Daring wickedness is here never suffered to triumph over helpless innocence. The estates of widows and orphans are never devoured by enterprising sharpers. In a word, we have no robbery under the color of law. No person among us desires any other reward for performing a brave and worthy action, but the consciousness of having served his nation. Our wise men are called Fathers; they truly sustain that character. They are always accessible, I will not say to the meanest of our people, for we have none mean but such as render themselves so by their vices.
"The palaces and prisons among you form a most dreadful contrast. Go to the former places, and you will see perhaps a deformed piece of earth assuming airs that become none but the Great Spirit above. Go to one of your prisons; here description utterly fails! Kill them, if you please; kill them, too, by tortures; but let the torture last no longer than a day. Those you call savages, relent; the most furious of our tormentors exhausts his rage in a few hours, and dispatches his unhappy victim with a sudden stroke. Perhaps it is eligible that incorrigible offenders should sometimes be cut off. Let it be done in a way that is not degrading to human nature. Let such unhappy men have an opportunity, by their fortitude, of making an atonement in some measure for the crimes they have committed during their lives.
"But for what are many of your prisoners confined?—for debt!—astonishing!—and will you ever again call the Indian nations cruel? Liberty, to a rational creature, as much exceeds property as the light of the sun does that of the most twinkling star. But you put them on a level, to the everlasting disgrace of civilization. I knew, while I lived among the white people, many of the most amiable contract debts, and I dare say with the best intentions. Both parties at the time of the contract expect to find their advantage. The debtor, we will suppose, by a train of unavoidable misfortunes, fails; here is no crime, nor even a fault; and yet your laws put it in the power of the creditor to throw the debtor into prison and confine him there for life! a punishment infinitely worse than death to a brave man! And I seriously declare, I had rather die by the most severe tortures ever inflicted on this continent, than languish in one of your prisons for a single year. Great Spirit of the Universe!—and do you call yourselves Christians? Does then the religion of Him whom you call your Saviour, inspire this spirit, and lead to these practices? Surely no. It is recorded of him, that a bruised reed he never broke. Cease, then, to call yourselves Christians, lest you publish to the world your hypocrisy. Cease, too, to call other nations savage, when you are tenfold more the children of cruelty than they."