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ADMISSION OF INFIDELS.

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dition for their wilful and impenitent rejection of the proffered grace of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, in addition to the guilt of their original rebellion.

Such a book as the Bible, such doctrines as it contains, such a God, such a devil, such a heaven, such a hell, such a Saviour, and such a religion as the Bible describes, Atheists cannot endure. And from this source, opposition to Capital Punishment, evidently, originated, and the doctrine of the expediency of its abolition finds its strongest advocates.

Infidels of every rank admit that CAPITAL PUNISHMENT is a doctrine of the Bible; that it is an ordinance of the God of the Bible, commanded and required by HIM always to be observed. And for this very reason they denounce Capital Punishment as having a false foundation; in its nature barbarous; a custom of barbarous ages; sustained only by the Bible, and its preachers, and adherents. Such a custom, they contend, ought to be banished from enlightened and polished society, by legislative enactments; or more precipitate experiments of commuting the punishment of death to imprisonment without the authority of legal enactments; or, at least, that some effectual measures should be adopted to rid the world of the Bible contagion of Capital Punishment.

It is not, however, to be understood, neither has it been so asserted, that every person who advocates the abolition of Capital Punishment, is in sentiment a speculative Atheist. Far be it from us thus to believe, or thus to affirm. The charitable probability is, that very few of mankind, comparatively, ever attain to the degree of speculative Atheism which has been designated. Master spirits of Atheism, elevated to the superlative honor of a lodge in the highest degree of

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GOV. D. D. TOMPKINS' SENTIMENTS.

abolition, (that is recollected by the writer,) was made by Governor Daniel D. Tompkins, in an official message to the Legislature of this state when he was the Executive, some thirty to thirty-five years ago. He stated for substance, what had been his conviction for many years previous, namely, "That it was wrong to take the life of any human being, for any crime whatever." In accordance with that conviction he most strenuously recommended the Legislature to repeal that part of the statute which provides for the punishment of death, and substitute imprisonment for life as the punishment for murder, or any capital crime. By their non-compliance with the recommendation, it would seem that the Legislature wisely and truly concluded, that it was not within the bounds of their jurisdiction to legislate on the laws of the Eternal JEHOVAH, nor to repeal, nor commute the punishment of death, which He had annexed as the penalty of the law of murder, justly due to the man who sheddeth the blood of his fellow-man.

Since that period the subject of Capital Punishment has been much agitated. No pains have been spared to render the execution of criminals an abhorrence in the sight of the people. By this and other corresponding measures, the expedience of abolishing Capital Punishment has become a popular sentiment. Public sympathy, in a very great degree, has been evidently changed from the murdered innocents, who suffer unavoidable and instant death, by the violent hands of envious or malignant assassins, to the poor murderer, whose very life must be taken away, ignominiously and cruelly, (as it is alleged,) by strangulalation under a gallows, by virtue of an ancient barbarous law, which ought to be repealed. Thus relatives are mortified above measure at the thought of such

EFFECTS OF PERVERTED PRINCIPLES.

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reproach brought upon them by the public execution of an unfortunate connection. The public sympathy is thereby exceedingly excited to an abhorrence of the penalty of death for murder, and to sympathy for the poor suffering malefactor; while the alarm, terror, suffering, and horrid death of the murdered innocents, excite but a pitiable share of the public commiseration.

The prevalence of opposition to Capital Punishment. and the popular sympathy excited thereby, have often been found to exert such powerful influence on the different classes of triers on criminal indictments, that it has been attended with extreme difficulty, in many instances, to organize, investigate, and obtain a verdict, even when circumstances of murder were known to be audacious, and proof of the person, and malicious intention of the murderer, was clear and unequivocal as the light of day.

Hosts of men have often been summoned for jurors and excused from serving, before an impartial jury could be obtained and empannelled as triers of the case. The pleas for excuse, expressed or implied, amounted in substance, to professed conscientious scruples of the propriety of agreeing on a verdict of guilty! (let the evidence be ever so clear and incontrovertible,) for the reason that they were opposed in sentiment, to Capital Punishment. And while that alleged barbarous law exists, they cannot, it is said, conscientiously consent to be the triers, to condemn a poor murderer to the punishment of death! So they are excused; and scores and hundreds follow on in the same train, excused from obeying the statute by the sympathetic principle of expedience.

Witnesses, also, who cannot be excused from testimony on such a plea, are nevertheless (it may be pre

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INFLUENCE OF PERVERTED SYMPATHY.

sumed) so filled with conscientious, sympathetic scruples, that their treacherous memories, on the stand, often "lean hard to the side of mercy," lest, by declaring all they know to be truth on the case, they might be the means of hanging a poor murderer, who "possibly might be insane," and innocent! although they heard him swear in cold blood that he would be the death of the man who had insulted him! and although they saw him commit the murder with the weapon of death, and heard him profanely glory in the accomplishment of his murderous design! Thus by a sympathetic "leaning to the side of mercy," they felt conscientiously satisfied in withholding known and convicting truth on testimony, rather than be the means of condemning to be hung, an atrocious, malicious murderer, known to them to be such. But, their plea to quiet conscience for the crime of perjury, in violation of the ninth precept of the Moral Law, by omitting to declare the whole truth, was perhaps," that possibly" the poor murderer" might be insane,” and innocent, or that it might "possibly" be better to imprison him for life, than to hang the poor man to death for the crime of murder.

Lawyers, also, an the defence of the culprit, filled with the same popular sympathy, opposed to Capital Punishment, and determined on rescuing their client from the ignominy of the gallows, exert their utmost powers of ingenuity and elocution to mould testimony into a perverted form, and by every quibble of law to invalidate truth itself, till it is masked with apparent falsehood; and if that cannot be done effectually, one more resort is confidently relied on, i. e. to prove by somebody, positively, that the culprit was insane when the alleged murder was committed! And although the shadow of such proof cannot be substantially

OPPOSITION TO PUBLIC EXECUTIONS

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found; yet, if even the "possibility of insanity” is set up in defence, and plead with half the eloquence of a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, some one man "possibly," on the jury, will be so captivated with the prevailing sympathy, and opposition to Capital Punishment, that a unanimous verdict of guilty cannot be obtained even from the most clear and positive testimony against the most notorious murderers, who thus escape conviction and deserved punishment in consequence of the false glosses under which truth lies concealed and perverted.

But, even if the witnesses, jurors, and court understand their duty, inflexibly adhere to it, give a verdict of guilty, and pronounce sentence of death on the murderer, as appears to have been the process and result of the trial of Wilcox; (to the credit of Saratoga court be it spoken,) yet, for aught any body knows, a matured sentiment in opposition to Capital Punishment, and an overflowing spirit of popular sympathy, may, in many instances, lead a court of appeal to trespass on the Laws of Heaven by commuting the sentence of death to imprisonment for life, even on the plea of presumption, "that there might, at least, be a possibility" that the condemned flagrant murderer might have been insane, and consequently an idiotic INNOCENT, who ought not to be hung; but to be punished with imprisonment for life, as a milder and more merciful punishment for his presumptive crime of Idiotism!!! Oh, let humanity blush at such absurdity!!

From the same source of opposition to Capital Punishment, and the prevailing popular sympathy for the poor murderer, such a hue-and-cry was raised against public executions, several years ago, that petitions for their total abolition were made, which resulted in the enactment of a law by the Legislature of the state

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