A popular essay on subjects of penal law, and on uninterrupted solitary confinement at labor, as contradistinguished to solitary confinement at night and joint labor by day, in a letter to John Bacon / by Francis Lieber.

  • Lieber, Francis, 1800-1872.
Date:
1838
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A popular essay on subjects of penal law, and on uninterrupted solitary confinement at labor, as contradistinguished to solitary confinement at night and joint labor by day, in a letter to John Bacon / by Francis Lieber. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

    18/96
    which I am nevertheless exposed to many very severe suffer- ings. Ask a convict whether he has ever made a contract to be punished should he offend, and if this contract is a mere fiction it is altogether insufficient to afford a ground upon which we can build the right of a matter of so grave reality as punish- ment. Secondly, if the contract were granted, we have not yet proved the right which the contracting powers had of making it. Beccaria founding his argument against punish- ment of death on the theory of contract, says that no man can be supposed to grant away conditionally his life, nor would it be lawful, because the right of life is inalienable. Equally inalienable is the right of personal liberty, of volition, of loco- motion, if I offend not, thereby, others, so that confinement would be as inadmissible as capital punishment. 7. Correction, Reform.—Philanthropically disposed per- sons have asserted that the only legitimate object of punish- ment, and, therefore, the only ground on which we can found the right of punishing, is the correction or reform of the con- vict. The reform of the convict, be it moral or political, that is, only as to his habits of obedience to the laws, from what- ever cause he may feel induced to obey, enters largely into every true penal theory, as I shall show presently; but it is far from affording us the right of punishment, aggravation, or the object of penalties. The reasons are: a. On theoretic grounds. b. On practical grounds. As to the first, it is sufficient to remember the funda- mental idea of the state, the very principle on which it is founded; in justice, right, and on general grounds, the state has nothing to do with the moral correction of the citizens. If this were granted as a subject for legitimate action of the state, the most insufferable inquisitorial power would be at once established, and, in spite of all political activity, the en- deavors of the state would still remain fruitless. We cannot, therefore, assume correction as the original ground of a penal right, but we shall sec, that the state can acquire it over cer- tain individuals, if the right of punition is once established.