Mr. Editor,

In your last number, you requested communications on the subject of capital punishments, and I accordingly place at your disposal the following remarks. A. B.

The question, whether capital punishments be expedient or law ful, is not to be despatched as easily as many seem to imagine. It demands a deep research into the principles of human nature, and an extensive observation of the influence of different modes of punishment, in different ages and periods of society. There is a responsibility attached to publications on this subject, which writers would do well to remember. If capital punishments be not necessary or just, the man, who, from hardness of heart, or a blind subjection to established prejudices, becomes their advocate, must answer for the blood of the criminal which is wantonly shed. On the other hand, if these punishments be demanded by the condition in which God has placed us, he, who, from excessive indulgence of sensibility, pleads for their abolition, will be responsible for the accumulated crimes and murders, which may follow the accomplishment of his wishes.

The opinions of men on this subject are very much tinctured by their characters and feelings. In every society, there are muliitudes, who defend capital pun

ishments, just as they favour a severe mode of education, from violence of passion, from a propensity to harsh and expeditious measures, and from an impatience which cannot stop to employ the milder methods of persuasion and reformation. Their indignation is more operative than their compassion. When they think of a criminal, they think only of his crime, and forget that he is a man. They have too little humanity to inquire, whether his fate may not be mitigated; and regard the advocates of a milder system, as a set of visionaries, who would sacrifice the peace of society to a sickly and childish tenderness of heart.

There is another class, who are accustomed to feel rather than to reason; whose imagination, quickened by sensibility, represents to them, with vividness and power, the unhappy criminal, immured in his dark and lonely cell, his limbs fettered, his countenance fallen, his conscience harrowed with guilt, his mind abandoned to despair, his feverrish sleep haunted by past crimes, and by horrid images of approaching death and judgment; and who forget, during this quick and tumultuous sympathy, the claims of the community, the necessity of restraining crime by terrour,and the difficulty of deciding, what modes and degrees of punishment are necessary to balance

the temptations of the present state of society.-Perhaps there are few men, in whom indignation and compassion are duly proportioned and combined, who bring to the subject a respect for the interests of the state, tempered by Christian sympathy towards the offender.--Perhaps the writer may afford a fresh example of one of the extremes which he has now described.

There is no difficulty, in laying down the great principles by which punishments should be regulated, and by which their justice is to be tried and decided.

In the first place, it is undoubtedly the will of God, who has formed us for civil society, that those crimes should be restrained, which tend to the destruction of society. Itis undoubtedly his will, that those punishments should be inflicted by civil rulers, which the peace of the community, and the security of life and property demand. Nature and revelation bear concurrent testimony to this truth. If, then, from the principles of human nature, and from the condition of society, capital punishments are necessary to these ends, they are to be esteemed as sanctioned by God, and as coincident with the dictates of enlightened benevolence as well as of justice.

The second principle, which is as clear as the first, is this, that society has no right to inflict punishments of greater severity than its security demands. The civil magistrate has no authority to inflict one pain which this end

does not require. It is no part of his office to punish a crime according to its abstract demerits. God, the omniscient, is alone able to render to men according to their deeds. The only province of the civil ruler is, to watch over the interests of the community; and any punishment, which these interests do not require, is inflicted without authority, is gratuitous cruelty, is an act of usurpation. From this principle it follows, that if the peace and rights of the community can be secured by punishments less severe than death,then death cannot justly be inflicted, and it should no longer hold a place in our penal code.

According to these principles, which are almost too obvious to be stated with formality, the question relating to capital punishments is to be determined, neither by abstract reasoning, nor by feeling, but by experience. We must judge from facts, and unhappily the facts are, at present, too few, to warrant a decided judgment. It is true, that instances of punishment are sufficiently numerous. Society has been sufficiently active in heaping pains and penalties on offenders, from the first moment of its institution. But these penalties have been inflicted with lit

tle regard to the second great principle, which I have stated, and hence they furnish little assistance in determining the present question.

According to this principle, society is bound to employ its best

lights and intelligence in discovering the mildest punishments by which its security may be effected. It should labour, like a good parent, to increase, as far as possible, the efficacy of such punishments, by the mode and circumstances of their infliction. It should especially labour to devise punish ments, which, whilst they strike a salutary terrour into the community, will contribute to the ultimate good of the offender, by aiding his reformation. On these objects, I repeat it, society is bound to employ the minds of its purest and most enlightened members. The principles of human nature, and the records of past ages should be explored, and regular and persevering experiments should be instituted, to discover the method of securing, with the least degree of pain, the greatest good to the community and the criminal. If we consider, that punishments have influence, not so much by the absolute suffering they contain, as by their power over the imagination, we shall discern, that it is very possible to subtract from their severity, without impairing their efficacy. But when has society done its duty in these respects? Where are its patient and labo rious experiments for the improvement of its penal code? What legislature ever expended on this subject half the zeal which it has wasted on party politicks? Hence the want of facts to determine our judgment on the question before us.

It is the decided and solema conviction of many, that would society do its duty, capital punishments would be found unnecessa ry, especially if with an amelioration of our penal system should be united greater exertions for the moral and religious improvement of the poor. These friends of humanity, should, however, beware of urging a sudden and immediate abolition of punishment by death. In our present imperfect state, long established abuses must gradually be removed.

Who of us does not believe, that slavery is unjust? Yet what reflecting man would therefore insist, that the chain of the Afri can should in a moment be broken, that in our southern states universal emancipation should immediately be proclaimed? What would this be, but to unchain every crime, and to convulse so+ ciety to its foundation? Men trained to slavery, are unfit for the gift of immediate liberty, They want foresight, self-government, and almost all the habits which prepare us to be our own masters. In the same manner, the operation of capital punishment on the minds of the community, and especially of the depraved, may have been such, as to ren der its immediate abolition highly expedient Where a punishment, unnecessarily severe, has long been employed as an instrument of terrour, a substitution of milder penalties may be found to embolden crime. The mind, which has long been familiarized to the

idea of a tremendous evil, counts lesser evils as nothing. Children trained under a rigid discipline often suffer from a relaxation of restraint, although a milder system, had it been originally adopted, would have been a more effectual security from disobedience. The cause of humanity, might, therefore, be injured by a sudden departure from our present modes of punishment. An increase of crimes might seem to justify a recurrence to the ancient severity, and a precedent would be furnished, which would not fail to be opposed to every future attempt at reformation.

There are two methods, which society is bound to employ, for the purpose of rendering capital punishments unnecessary. The first has been mentioned. Persevering efforts should be employed to increase the efficacy of milder punishments, and especially to give them a reforming influence on the criminal. Reformation is an end which should never be forgotten by society,any more than by a parent. Is it said, the attempt is hopeless? But where has the experiment been fairly made? When you visit our gaols and state prisons, and see criminals crowded together, and exposed to one another's example and conversation, can you wonder that few or none are reformed? Is it to the abodes of concentrated pestilence and infection, that you send the sick to regain their health? Do you believe, that even a man,unstained by crime, if compelled

to spend months and years in contact with convicts, would return to society virtuous and pure? How weak then is the plea, sometimes urged in sup port of capital punishments, that the milder punishments inflicted by our laws work no change of character. Let our prisons be schools of reformation. Let the criminal have no intercourse with criminals. Let him be exposed to virtuous influences. Whilst pain, privation, and labour, admonish him of his guilt, let kindness awaken whatever sensibilities may slumber in his breat. Let him feel, that though a criminal, he is still a man, not an outcast from society, not abandoned by God. Let government commit to some of its wisest citizens, the office of persevering inquiry into the methods of reforming the offender, and let it liberally apply those resources, which are often wasted on the destruction of the human race, to those institutions which this benevolent purpose may require. That every offender will be reclaimed, we do not hope; but we hope, that many, who now advance, without a check, to atrocity of crime, would, under such influences, be arrested in the beginning of their career; and that the diminution of those enormities, for which death is now inflicted, would gradually prepare men for the utter aboli, tion of this dreadful punishment.

Another method of procuring the abolition of capital punishments is, to increase our exertions for the moral improvement of

those classes of society, in which the temptations to great crimes abound. The penal code of a country must receive a character from the state of its morals. In proportion as a community is corrupt, its punishments must be severe. Accordingly, the mournful frequency of crimes, which has distinguished the last year, and which is to be ascribed to the wars in Europe and our own country, is often urged as a reason for the infliction of heavier penalties on offenders. To remove this ground of capital punishments, the philanthropist should endeavour to purify the morals of society, to diffuse those sentiments of religion, which, by arming conscience with new authority, render outward restraint and punishment less necessary. Here is our great defect. No adequate labour is employed to raise the character of the poorer classes of society. Whilst the extension of population and luxury is multiplying their temptations, how little is done to increase their power of resistance. As an example of this indifference, it may be stated, that an association was lately formed in this metropolis for the improvement of sailors, a class of men, who to increase our wealth and indulgences, are placed in situations peculiarly dangerous to the character; and yet in this commercial community, which owes its prosperity to the exposures and sufferings of seamen, no adequate encouragement has been given to this design. The truth ought to

be heard. Society makes criminals, and then stains its hands with their blood. The higher classes, in general, care little for the moral exposure of those by whom they are served and enriched. As long as the laws set a hedge round their possessions, and punish with severity the miserable being, whose neglected education and depraving modes of life have trained him to crime, they continue to enjoy without remorse or concern This ought not to be. They who derive the chief benefits of the social state, are bound to mitigate its inequalities, to feel for those on whom its burdens and temptations chiefly fall, to diminish the motives to crime, to diffuse the principles of virtue, and not to add to the other miseries of life, a rigour of punishment, which nothing but their own neglect may have rendered necessary.

That capital punishments will at length be abolished, may be hoped, as well as desired by one, who is familiar with past times, and who anticipates a future extension of the knowledge and spirit of Christianity. The progress of civilization has been marked by a mitigation of penal laws; and like causes will continue to produce like effects.The tortures, to which criminals were once exposed, in Euorpe, and which expressed the fury of demons, rather than the solemnity of justice, are too horrible to be detailed. We have lived to see a happy change in society. Breaking on the wheel, maiming,