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.)

    24/96
    it would be easy, consistently to show that all offences are alike, however this might at first glance militate with a view of retribution, because they have their characteristic trait of offence in the fact that they contravene the absolute demand of reason, in what degree, matters little; nay, a degree of offence is hardly possible, and the first unlawful act committed by a youth of the age of discretion ought to be visited with the same punishment which is inflicted upon the most hardened criminal. The practical effect of this theory has been, that its adherents have exerted their mind to solve the question of the original right of punition almost to the total exclusion of a thorough consideration of punishment, and the various punishments themselves. All this is very well in its place; so we may say many spirited and perhaps sound things on the culinary dis- position of man in the abstract; why man cooks, and how he distinguishes himself by cookery from the brute creation; but Avhen we finally come to the dinner itself, we have to talk about the various nourishments after all. 10. Finally, I may say a few words on those theories, which derive the right of punition from the principle of self-defence, vested in its fullest amplitude in each individual when that so called state of nature existed, which is believed to have pre- ceded the state. It is supposed that the latter once being founded, self-defence passes over from the individual to the state, or its chief magistrate. It is unnecessary here to say anything about the fabled state of nature, which, in fact, would be a very unnatural one. All we have to observe in the pre- sent place is, that this theory alone would lead us to nothing else but the merest expediency. For self-defence, or self- preservation places every means at our disposal, in the choice of which we are guided, if in that presumed state of nature, by our own will and views—in short, by expediency alone. To give a sketch, a very brief and hasty one indeed, of my views on this subject, I shall speak of the following points, in the succession in which they appear here: What is punishment?