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to endeavour to reform , rather than , exterminate offenders , and the punishment of death ought never to be inflicted where it is not absolutely necessary to the public safety : Therefore , be it
enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives , of the Commonwealth in Pennsylvania , in general assembly met , and it is hereby enacted by the authority
of the same , That no crime whatever hereafter committed , except murder of the first degree , shall be punished with death in the state of Pennsylvania . "
With this example before us ; and after a mature deliberation upon such reasons as suggested themselves in favour and in opposition to the proposal , a society was formed , 4 * For the diffusion
of know / edge respecting the punishment of death and the improvement of prison discipline . " The spirit in which this society meets may be explained by a short
extract from Mr . Clarkson ' s Portraiture of Quakerism . " It is much to be lamented that nations professing Christianity , should have lost sight , in their various acts of legislation , of Christian
principles . But if this negligence or omission would appear worthy of regret , if reported of any Christian nation , it would appear most so if reported of our own , where one would suppose that the advantages of civil and religious liberty , and those of a reformed religion , would have had their influence in
the correction of our judgments , and in ihe benevolent dispositions of our will . And yet nothing is more true than that these good influences have either never been produced , or , if produced , that they have never been attended to upon
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this subject . There seems to be no provision for religious instruction in our numerous prisons . We seem to make no patient trials of those who are confined in therrt ^ for their reformation ; but , on th < j
other hand , we seem to hurry them ofiT the stage of life , by means of a code which annexes death to two hundred different offences . And it seems remarkable , that this
system should be persevered in > when we consider that death , as far as the experiment has been made in our own country , has little or no effect as a punishment for crimes .
And , when we consider that m consequence of the experiments made in other countries ^ it seems to be approaching fast to an axiom , that crimes are less frequent in proportion as mercy takes the place
of severity , or as there are judicious substitutes for the punishment of death . Qi As Chrsitians , it seems that we should be influenced by
Christian principles . Now , nothing can be more true , than that Christianity commands us to be tenderhearted one to another , to have a tender forbearance one with another , and to regard one another
as brethren . We are taught also that men , independently of their accountableness to their own governments , are accountable for their actions in a future state , and that punishments are unquestionably to follow . But where are out forbearance and our love ; \ vhere is our regard for the temporal
and eternal interests of man ; where is our respect for the principles of the gospel , if we make the reformation of a criminal a less object than his punishment ; or if we consign him to death in the midst of his sins , without
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3 <) 0 On the Punishment of Death .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1811, page 390, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2418/page/6/
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