it shall be to superintend, generally, the interests, and watch the operations of the common school system. They are induced to this measure by the consideration that the system is sufficiently important to justify the measure.

The commissioners cannot conclude this report without expressing, once more, their deep sense of the momentous subject committed to them. If we regard it as connected with the cause of religion and morality merely, its aspect is awfully solemn. But the other view of it, already alluded to, is sufficient to excite the keenest solicitude in the legislative body. It is a subject, let it be repeated, intimately connected with the permanent prosperity of our political institutions. The American empire is founded on the virtue and intelligence of the people. But it were irrational to conceive that any form of government can long exist without virtue in the people. Where the largest portion of a nation is vicious, the government must cease to exist, as it loses its functions. The laws cannot be executed where every man has a personal interest in screening and protecting the profligate and abandoned. When these are unrestrained by the wholesome coercion of authority, they give way to every species of excess and crime; one enormity brings on another, until the whole community becoming corrupt, bursts forth into some mighty change, or sinks at once into annihilation. Can it be,' said Washington, 'that providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature.'

And the commissioners cannot but hope, that that Being, who rules the universe in justice and in mercy, who rewards virtue and punishes vice, will most graciously deign to smile benignly on the humble efforts of a people in a cause purely his own; and that he will manifest his pleasure in the lasting prosperity of our country."

Acting on this report and other consideration of the subject, the Legislature passed chapter 242, which became a law on the 19th of June. This statute permanently established a system of common schools, and by an amendment to the Constitution, article 9, section 1, adopted in 1894, the duty of maintaining such schools was expressly imposed upon the legislature.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT.

The Assembly committee to which was referred the part of the Governor's speech relative to capital punishment, ante, p. 703, submitted the following report on the 12th of June:

"That they have maturely reflected on the subject committed to them, and with all due deference and respect weighed the suggestions and opinions of his excellency, and beg leave to submit the result of their deliberations.

We live in a christian country—and although it is the fashion of the day, to close the eye upon the great sun of revelation, and by the dim lights of reason to search in the nature of things for the sources of all human powers and rights, yet the committee cannot hesitate to bow implicitly to the revealed will of the Almighty. When in the sacred book which contains that will, they find it in substance written whosoever sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed,' they are astonished that any doubt can exist among those who profess to believe its sacred character, as to the right of society to punish with death. But there are some who refuse evidence to that sacred character, or submission to that paramount authority, which as the revealed will of God the scriptures demand.

To such it may be proper to urge other considerations on the subject. The common objection is-society can have no rights, except those which are transferred to them by

individuals. No individual independent of government, ever had the right to take the life of another; nor had any individual a right to take his own life. Therefore, individuals never could transfer to society a right over life; consequently government never had the power to punish with death.

That no man in any state of society has a right to destroy his own life, is undoubtedly true- but that one man never had the right, under any circumstances, to take the life of another is in the opinion of the committee, warranted neither by religion, reason, or nature.

If a state of social existence can be imagined, in which no power exists in the aggregate body to regulate the conduct, protect the rights and avenge the wrongs of individuals, the committee apprehend that in such a state, nature, reason and justice, would declare a power to inflict death. vested in each individual. If in such a state any one endowed with superior strength, art and wickedness, should incessantly exercise his power in exterminating those around him, can we hesitate to believe that nature, reason, or necessity, point to the remedy and the punishment. Can it be denied that each individual of such a society would have the perfect right to preserve his own existence, and prepare for future safety by inflicting death on the destroyer? Or will it be pretended that in a state evidently presupposing a necessity for incessant labor to sustain life, individuals should abandon their own subsistence, and devote their time to the confinement of wretches, who if they were not removed from social intercourse, would exterminate the human race?

Surely the death of such offenders would be strictly just -it would be just because it would be necessary. Without it the human race must fall a sacrifice to strength, ambition and villiany. When sovereignties are legally established, individuals surrender the power of self protection, the right to repel and punish aggressors, to the govern

ment, and with these they transfer the right to punish with death. The same principle which originally vested the right in individuals, when society is organized, ripens into a maxim, and justifies its exercise in the government. Salus populi suprema lex-is the paramount provision in every municipal code; and upon the indisputable justice and acknowledged expediency of this provision, founded as it is deeply in nature and in necessity, governments have for five thousand years exercised the right to inflict the punishment of death. The committee are not prepared with his excellency to doubt the existence of a right thus sanctioned, and thus universally acknowledged; and they are clearly of opinion, that (independently of the decisive authority of revelation) if the safety of society demands it, governments have the right, and are imperiously required to take the life of a criminal. That it is indispensable to the preservation and safety of the human race that certain crimes should subject the criminal to the punishment of death, is a position in the opinion of the committee, undeniable in theory and proved by experience. what number and species of crimes it is necessary to annex this punishment, has been the subject of controversy in all ages and in all civilized nations. Perhaps no rule or limit can be safely and universally established; it must always depend on circumstances. The position of the state, its progress in science and civilization; its moral habits and religious character; the form of its government, with other considerations equally important, must ever influence legislatures in forming a criminal code and in graduating the scale of punishments. In our own state and country the committee believe, that capital punishments are restrained to as few cases as is compatible with the safety of our citizens and the preservation of social order.

To

The crimes punishable with death in this state, are treason, murder and arson. The committee mean no technical definitions; but however the crime of treason may be esti

A

mated in communities where remorseless usurpers trample down human rights, yet in a state like this where the sovereignty is always in the people, where the constitution, the work of their hands, is a charter of liberties, where the laws are framed for their protection, and enacted solely for their safety and happiness no enemy can be more unnatural and detestable, more worthy of death, than that which aims at the destruction of all this moral and political felicity. What is it but to violate liberty in her last sanctuary-to forge chains for millions of freemen-to demolish the bulwark of human rights, and to blast the happiness of our race through a thousand generations. Does the man prepared for crimes like these deserve to live? Is it right that the monster should find his life protected by those very laws he is striving to prostrate! By those very men in whose blood he is ready to steep his sword? Is it safe for the State, for the people, for the world that a crime so dreadful, so inviting, so seductive to the aspiring spirit of man, should be checked by a threat of imprisonment only? Is it just or politic that such a liberticide should be punished in common with the petty larceny villain, who filches to clothe himself or feed his children? The committee cannot doubt that these questions will receive a loud and universal negative.

The murderer, the committee also think, cannot live with safety to society. He has exhibited a mind utterly depraved-prepared for every kind and degree of criminality for it cannot be doubted that the man who in cold blood could slay his brother, is steeped too deep in guilt to permit any hope of self reformation, while he encumbers the earth. Nothing but that unmerited mercy which cleanseth from all sins, can redeem the wretch from the empire of hell, and restore his soul to a hope of salvation.

It seems to be an universal sentiment of our race, that the murderer shall be cut off from among the living.'