The value and strength of this characteristic trait will occasion the adduction of more evidence of the en lightened practical humanity of the people of this coun try.
We shall acquire not a little proof, to the point under examination, in considering our penal codes. In the solemn and reiterated provisions against ecclesiastical tests, and other infractions of religious liberty, and in favour of the rights of conscience, we behold the humane and powerful arm of a free, a feeling, and a reflecting people, tearing from their penal code the bloody cata logue of agonizing punishments, with which impious men, in too many other countries, have, for a season, subverted religion, and afflicted humanity. Fines, im pribonments, privations, exile and torture, (in religious affairs,) are held by us to make uncharitable barbarians of every branch of tile governments that inflict them, and of all the people, who can b.:ar to witness their daily use.
The defence of the state has led to awful seTerities in other countries, in the punishment of treason. The rack, the wheel, fire and faggot, decapitation, embow ening, cutting out the tongue, and tearing out the heart of the criminal, entailing forfeiture upon tbe unoffend ing family, and even the malignant corruption of their blood, are some of the punishments which barbarous man has inflicted for this crime, upon his kind ; often too upon his own kindred. In these states, humanity has advanced so far as to leave it in the power of the na tional legislature to reject the punishment of even the least painful death for the most aggravated treason. It has forbidden to that legislature the ordaining corrup tion or blood, and does not allow it to direct any forfei ture to the injury of the widow or children.t The of fender alone may be punished by the deprivation of all estate during his natural life ; but it is left in the dis cretion of congress to determine the In several of the states, the ancient punishments of of the stocks, the pillory, cutting off the ears, whip and death are abolished, except for murder of the first degree, and one or two other crimes, for which an execution by hanging may be awarded. It is firmly be lieved in this country, that the destruction of feeling, produced by public exposure at the stocks, the pillory, and the post, occasions a desperation in the criminals, as to regaining character, and is therefore an unwise and inhuman addition to the minor punishments. To
wards the culprit's family it operates as a corruption of fame, from which every principle of justice and philan thropy clearly exempts them. To the wound to the family character, which a wicked parent or husband has inflicted, the people of this country will no longer make a wanton and dreadful addition. Serious doubts, both religious and humane, have been raised against the punishment of death. The Americans are making a pious experiment of administering justice in greater mercy. No fatal evil can attend the trial of their new plan. No doubts have yet arisen from considerable ex perience. If unhappily it should he [Mind, that the punishment of death cannot ultimately be excluded from our code, the people of this country will unfeignedly deplore the dreadful necessity. It is firmly believed, and it is humbly trusted, that the humane citizens of this country will never cease to weep over the victims of the sword of inevitable war, and of impartial jus t' ce.* An inestimable mitigation of the penal codes of all other nations has been adopted in the United States, by means of those provisions of the federal constitution, which expressly forbid all our legislatures, as well of the union as or the several states, to pass any bill of attainder, or any law ex post /item. Laws made after the commission of a fact, for the purpose or punishing the commission of it, are against all notions of personal safety, all the rules of justice, all ideas of humanity. They have been a dreadful engine in the hands of many governments. They fraudulently reach the infliction of the severe punishment of exile, by expulsion, to which the humane policy of the United Americans is decidedly opposed. Sonic of the most virtuous and eminent cha racters in the world have been subjected to banishment, or to agonizing, infamous, and fatal punishments, by these retrospective laws ; and that too, for parts of their conduct which innocence permitted, which patriotism and philanthropy enjoined, and which no authority had previously forbid. The poorest citizen, nay, the uncon nected alien, walking with decent confidence and order, under the beloved and venerable protection of known laws, cannot here be hurried from his wretched family, to a death of anguish and of infamy, by the inhuman contrivance of a retrospective statute.