vidual security. If this is the reasoning we are to follow, which is indeed the argument adduced by Montesquieu and Rousseau—then why, the suicide will argue, why am not I allowed to barter my life for peace, which I believe dwells in the grave? And what can we answer, if man is allowed to barter life for peace with society? For if wrong in one case, it must be also wrong in the other. Then this right could certainly never have place since none could ever yield it.
But even allowing to the opponents of the alteration of our code, that the right of life and death is inherent in society, do our laws require no amendment? is it right to inflict death as do our laws for every petty offence? What hurt can one man inflict upon another, except murder, that can in justice require he should receive the most dreadful punishment man has in his power to ordain?
He who has read the annals of America, he who has heard the accounts of travellers and voyagers amongst savage nations, must be astonished to find savages in this so superior in mercy and illumination to European nations. For who ever heard of an American being put to an ignominious death for stealing a day’s subsistence? Who ever heard of an American, as a judge sitting in all the dignity the appointment of a people could give, condemn in cold blood the father of a family to death, for having felt the silent grief of his wife and the tears of his children around him, the dimned lustre of whose eyes would move the hardest heart, that had seen how once they were wont smiling with joy to play around upon nature. Yet such things have been heard of here where they boast of an Howard, of generosity, nay more, humanity. Is it fit that for crimes, which merely abridge the comforts of those around them, that men should be condemned to death? But what do we say comforts, what comforts are often
