[continued] Listen to the voice of justice and reason; it cries out to you that human judgements are never certain enough for society to put to death a man condemned by other fallible men. Could you imagine the most perfect judicial order, could you find judges with the highest integrity and enlightenment, there would still remain some room for error or prejudice. Why do you forbid the means of rectifying them? Why do you make it futile to offer a helping hand to oppressed innocence? What matter these sterile regrets, these illusory reparations that you accord to a vain shadow, to insensible ash? They are the sad witnesses of the barbarous recklessness of your penal laws. To take from a man the possibility of redeeming his crime through his repentance or acts of virtue, to close off from him pitilessly any return to virtue or self-esteem, to hasten to cast him, so to speak, into the tomb still covered with the recent stain of his crime, is to my eyes the most horrible refinement of cruelty.
The first duty of the legislator is to form and to preserve public morals, source of all liberty, source of all social happiness. When, in order to achieve a specific goal, he strays from this general and essential goal, he commits the most gross and deadly of errors; it is therefore necessary that the law always presents to the people the most pure model of justice and reason. If, in place of this powerful, calm, moderate sternness which must characterise them, they place anger and vengeance; if they make human blood flow, that they could spare and that they have not the right to shed; if they were in the eyes of the people cruel scenes and bodies murdered by tortures; so they change in the hearts of the citizens the ideas of justice and injustice, they kindle in the heart of society fierce prejudices which produce others in their turn. Man is no longer for man so sacred an object: one has a less great idea of his dignity when public authority plays with his life. The idea of murder inspires far less fright when the very law gives the example and the spectacle; the horror of the crime diminishes as soon as it is no longer punished except by another crime. Stay well away from defeating the effectiveness of punishments with an excess of severity: one is absolutely opposed to the other. Everything supports moderate laws; everything conspires against cruel laws.
We can observe that in free countries, crimes are more rare and penal laws are more lenient. All ideas support it. Free countries are those where the rights of man are respected, and where, in consequence, the laws are just. Everywhere where they offend against humanity with an excess of rigour, it is proof that the dignity of man is unknown, that that of the citizen does not exist; it is proof that the legislator is only a master who commands slaves, and who punishes them pitilessly acording to his whims. I conclude that the death penalty must be abolished.
Well, he covered most of the bases, and I think I agree with him. All I wonder now is what on earth happened to the man who could make such a speech, once he took power himself?
no subject
Listen to the voice of justice and reason; it cries out to you that human judgements are never certain enough for society to put to death a man condemned by other fallible men. Could you imagine the most perfect judicial order, could you find judges with the highest integrity and enlightenment, there would still remain some room for error or prejudice. Why do you forbid the means of rectifying them? Why do you make it futile to offer a helping hand to oppressed innocence? What matter these sterile regrets, these illusory reparations that you accord to a vain shadow, to insensible ash? They are the sad witnesses of the barbarous recklessness of your penal laws. To take from a man the possibility of redeeming his crime through his repentance or acts of virtue, to close off from him pitilessly any return to virtue or self-esteem, to hasten to cast him, so to speak, into the tomb still covered with the recent stain of his crime, is to my eyes the most horrible refinement of cruelty.
The first duty of the legislator is to form and to preserve public morals, source of all liberty, source of all social happiness. When, in order to achieve a specific goal, he strays from this general and essential goal, he commits the most gross and deadly of errors; it is therefore necessary that the law always presents to the people the most pure model of justice and reason. If, in place of this powerful, calm, moderate sternness which must characterise them, they place anger and vengeance; if they make human blood flow, that they could spare and that they have not the right to shed; if they were in the eyes of the people cruel scenes and bodies murdered by tortures; so they change in the hearts of the citizens the ideas of justice and injustice, they kindle in the heart of society fierce prejudices which produce others in their turn. Man is no longer for man so sacred an object: one has a less great idea of his dignity when public authority plays with his life. The idea of murder inspires far less fright when the very law gives the example and the spectacle; the horror of the crime diminishes as soon as it is no longer punished except by another crime. Stay well away from defeating the effectiveness of punishments with an excess of severity: one is absolutely opposed to the other. Everything supports moderate laws; everything conspires against cruel laws.
We can observe that in free countries, crimes are more rare and penal laws are more lenient. All ideas support it. Free countries are those where the rights of man are respected, and where, in consequence, the laws are just. Everywhere where they offend against humanity with an excess of rigour, it is proof that the dignity of man is unknown, that that of the citizen does not exist; it is proof that the legislator is only a master who commands slaves, and who punishes them pitilessly acording to his whims. I conclude that the death penalty must be abolished.
Well, he covered most of the bases, and I think I agree with him. All I wonder now is what on earth happened to the man who could make such a speech, once he took power himself?