THE DEATH PENALTY

BY VICTOR HUGO

Gentlemen of the Jury, if there is a culprit here, it is not my son,-it is myself,-it is I-I, who for these twentyfive years have opposed capital punishment,-have contended for the inviolability of human life,-have committed this crime for which my son is now arraigned. Here I denounce myself, Mr. Advocate General! I have committed it under all aggravated circumstances; deliberately, repeatedly, tenaciously. Yes, this old and absurd lex talionisthis law of blood for blood-I have combated all my lifeall my life, Gentlemen of the Jury! And, while I have breath, I will continue to combat it, by all my efforts as a writer, by all my words and all my votes as a legislator! I declare it before the crucifix; before that victim of the penalty of death, who sees and hears us; before that gibbet, to which, two thousand years ago, for the eternal instruction of the generations, the human law nailed the Divine!

In all that my son has written on the subject of capital punishment and for writing and publishing which he is now on trial,-in all that he has written, he has merely proclaimed the sentiments with which, from his infancy, I have inspired him. Gentlemen Jurors, the right to criticize a law, and to criticize it severely-especially a penal law-is placed beside the duty of amelioration, like the torch beside the work under the artisan's hand. The right of the journalist is as sacred, as necessary, as imprescriptible, as the right of the legislator.

What are the circumstances? A man, a convict, a sentenced wretch, is dragged, on a certain morning, to one of

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our public squares. There he finds the scaffold! shudders, he struggles, he refuses to die. He is young yet -only twenty-nine. Ah! I know what you will say,-"He is a murderer!" But hear me. Two officers seize him. His hands, his feet, are tied. He throws off the two officers. A frightful struggle ensues. His feet, bound as they are, become entangled in the ladder. He uses the scaffold against the scaffold! The struggle is prolonged. Horror seizes on the crowd. The officers,-sweat and shame on their brows, -pale, panting, terrified, despairing, despairing with I know not what horrible despair, shrinking under that public reprobation which ought to have visited the penalty, and spared the passive instrument, the executioner,-the officers strive savagely. The victim clings to the scaffold, and shrieks for pardon. His clothes are torn, his shoulders bloody, still he resists. At length, after three-quarters of an hour of this monstrous effort, of this spectacle without a name, of this agony,-agony for all, be it understood,— agony for the assembled spectators as well as for the condemned man, after this age of anguish, Gentlemen of the Jury, they take back the poor wretch to his prison.

The People breathe again. The People, naturally merciful, hope that the man will be spared. But no, the guillotine, tho vanquished, remains standing. There it frowns all day, in the midst of a sickened population. And at night, the officers, reinforced, drag forth the wretch again, so bound that he is but an inert weight,-they drag him. forth, haggard, bloody, weeping, pleading, howling for life, -calling upon God, calling upon his father and mother,— for like a very child had this man become in the prospect of death, they drag him forth to execution. He is hoisted on the scaffold, and his head falls!-And then through

every conscience runs a shudder. Never had legal murder appeared with an aspect so indecent, so abominable. All feel jointly implicated in the deed. It is at this very moment that from a young man's breast escapes a cry, wrung from his very heart,-a cry of pity and of anguish,—a cry of horror, a cry of humanity. And this cry you would punish! And in the face of the appalling facts which I have narrated, you would say to the guillotine, "Thou art right!" and to Pity, saintly Pity, "Thou art wrong!" Gentlemen of the Jury, it cannot be! Gentlemen, I have finished.

OUR RELATIONS TO ENGLAND

BY EDWARD EVERETT

Who does not feel, what reflecting American does not acknowledge, the incalculable advantages derived by this land out of the deep fountains of civil, intellectual, and moral truth, from which we have drawn in England? What American does not feel proud that his fathers were the countrymen of Bacon, of Newton, and of Locke? Who does not know that, while every pulse of civil liberty in the heart of the British Empire beats warm and full in the bosom of our ancestors, the sobriety, the firmness, and the dignity, with which the cause of free principles struggled into existence here, constantly found encouragement and countenance from the friends of liberty there? Who does not remember that, when the Pilgrims went over the sea, the prayers of the faithful British confessors, in all the quarters of their dispersion, went over with them, while their aching eyes were strained till the star of hope should go up in the

western skies? And who will ever forget that, in that eventful struggle which severed these youthful republics from the British crown, there was not heard throughout our continent in arms, a voice which spoke louder for the rights of America than that of Burke, or of Chatham, within the walls of the British Parliament, and at the foot of the British throne?

I am not I need not say I am not-the panegyrist of England. I am not dazzled by her riches, nor awed by her power. The scepter, the miter, and the coronet,-stars, garters, and blue ribbons,-seem to me poor things for great men to contend for. Nor is my admiration awakened by her armies, mustered for the battles of Europe; her navies, overshadowing the ocean; nor her empire, grasping the farthest East. It is these, and the price of guilt and blood by which they are too often maintained, which are the cause why no friend of liberty can salute her with undivided affections. But it is the cradle and the refuge of free principles, tho often persecuted; the school of religious liberty, the more precious for the struggles through which it has passed; the tombs of those who have reflected honor on all who speak the English tongue; it is the birthplace of our fathers, the home of the Pilgrims; it is these which I love and venerate in England. I should feel ashamed of an enthusiasm for Italy and Greece, did I not also feel it for a land like this. In an American, it would seem to me degenerate and ungrateful to hang with passion upon the traces of Homer and Virgil, and follow, without emotion, the nearer and plainer footsteps of Shakespeare and Milton. I should think him cold in his love for his native land who felt no melting in his heart for that other native country which holds the ashes of his forefathers.

REPLY TO HAYNE

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

The honorable member complained that I had slept on his speech. I must have slept on it, or not slept at all. The moment the honorable member sat down, his friend from Missouri rose, and, with much honeyed commendation of the speech, suggested that the impressions which it had produced were too charming and delightful to be disturbed by other sentiments or other sounds, and proposed that the Senate should adjourn. Would it have been quite amiable in me, sir, to interrupt this excellent good feeling? Must I not have been absolutely malicious, if I could have thrust myself forward to destroy sensations thus pleasing? Was it not much better and kinder, both to sleep upon them myself, and to allow others, also, the pleasure of sleeping upon them? But if it be meant, by sleeping upon his speech, that I took time to prepare a reply to it, it is quite a mistake; owing to other engagements, I could not employ even the interval between the adjournment of the Senate and its meeting the next morning, in attention to the subject of this debate. Nevertheless, sir, the mere matter of fact is undoubtedly true-I did sleep on the gentleman's speech, and slept soundly. And I slept equally well on his speech of yesterday, to which I am now replying. It is quite possible that, in this respect, also, I possess some advantage over the honorable member, attributable, doubtless, to a cooler temperament on my part; for, in truth, I slept upon his speeches remarkably well. But the gentleman inquires why he was made the object of such a reply. Why was he singled out? If an attack had been made on the East, he,