date

1821. April 17. First Lines.
1821. April 17.

First Lines.

Penal Law.

In the origin from whence he deduced the word, indicative of the demand for, or propriety of, the punishment - the sufferings - he was occupied in the application of, he found a pretence for tyranny:- for tyranny, exercising itself in the taking of vengeance. The term which is not applicable without hazarding the production of useless punishment to an indefinite extent, where evil in the shape of punishment is to be applied, is, and ever was, in use to be employed, without hazard of any such evil, at any rate where, on the occasion of a contract for service between individual and individual, good, in the shape of reward, was to be applied: the service has been performed: on /By/ the one part, the work contracted for has been done - the service has been performed: at the hands and at the expence of the other, title has been made to the correspondent service: the pay - the reward - has been deserved.

Hence, arise two radical positions /rules/ -

Objects which punishment ought never to propose to itself are - 1. vengeance: 2. Compensation, in so far as the nature of the case admitts of the application of it for the evil produced by the misdeed: 2. prevention of the commission of similar misdeeds in future, as well by the misdoer himself as by all other individuals taken at large.

Exacted
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    Description: 1821. April 17.

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    Penal Law

    To the word punishment, lawyercraft, in confederacy with religious fraud - /and/ religious hypocrisy - in confederacy with, and in subserviency to, monarchical tyranny, has, of late years. applied /furnished/ a synone/y/m - viz visitation - penal visitation -

    In the language of the English translation of the Bible, visitation is employed as synonymous to punishment Synonymous? But in what case? - where the misdoer being a man, the ruler is the invisible almighty. Considered in this point of view, sin is the name employed or the designation of the misdeed.

    By the word visitation, substituted by Lawyer's Rhetorick, to the word punishment, the following ae the notions insinuated, the intimations conveyed.

    Of the Almighty invisible, whose throne is in heaven, the Monarch is the visible representative here on earth: the representative, according to the certificate given to him by Blackstone, invested with no small part - with as large a part as is necessary for the accomplishment of the indisputable object of his government - the greatest happiness of him in comparison of whom all others are but as creatures to their creator - invested, in a word, with a compleatly sufficient /adequate/ part of his divine constituent's attributes. By the alledged offender, a misdeed has been committed. By this misdeed, the Monarch has been offended. The Monarch, being God upon earth - God with us - the offence is a sin. Sins deserve to be visited. For this his sin, this sinner deserves to be visited. At the charge of him by whom sin has ben committed, punishment is due. Proportioned to the dignity of the offended ruler, should be the magnitude of the

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    Description: 1821. April 17.

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    Penal Law.

    Exacted at the expence of the misdoer /evil doer/, compensation necessitates suffering: exacted in consideration of, and in proportion to, the evil done by him, that suffering, by the whole amount of it, operates as punishment.

    In the first place, Compensation for the party injured; in the next place, over and above compensation, punishment for the benefit of the public - punishment for appeasement of the wrath of the offended and wrathful /exasperated/ monarch - such is the arithmetic of tyranny. Punishment including, the exaction to the profit of the Monarch, the exaction of the whole of that matter by which compensation to the individual injured might have been afforded; after that, compensation or no compensation to the individual injured.

    Such is the order, the method of tyranny. Compensation by one course of procedure; punishment by another and a different course of procedure; reformation, by health given to the soul by a third and different course of procedure - such is the arithmetic of lawyercraft - confederate partner and instrument of tyranny; of lawyercraft in its most rapacious character, and elaborated garb - the chararcter and garb of the English lawyer.

    Compensation and satisfaction are synonymous. Of the word compensation the psychological import has its root in the physical idea of weight: compensation is weight for weight: satifaction is giving enough for what has been suffered: enough of good for the evil that has been suffered: in such sort that the weight of the evil /good/ in the scale of enjoyment shall be equal to the weight of the evil in the scale of suffering.
  • Title: [1821. April 17. First Lines]
    Description: 1821. April 17.

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    Penal Law

    Cases unmeet

    In relation to punishment, considered as so mauch evil, employed as a means for the excluding, as far as possible, without greater evil, evil considered as producible by misdeeds thus converted - converted by the connection thus established into offences, three main questions on every occasion present themselves -

    1. In what cases shall punishment be aplied -

    2. In what proportion -

    3. In what shape -

    1. In what cases shall it be applied? A question of the opposite aspect - by the question in what cases shall it not be applied - a shorter and clearer /more commodious howsoever indirect/ answer may be given to this question than by a direct one.

    1. Where it would be groundless -

    2. Where it would be inefficacious /needless/ -

    3. Where it would be unprofitable /inefficacious/ -

    4. Where it would be unprofitable /needless/ -

    These are the cases in which /In each one of these cases, supposing them realised/ punishment itis evident manifest would be unapt: of all these cases, it may be said, they are unmeet for punishment.

    Case the first - where punishment would be groundless: Where the application of punishment would be unapt. Necessarily involved /included/ in the notion of punishment is the notion of misdeed done, of offence given. Of the sort of operation by which,for the exclusion of greater evil, evil is purposely produced, the operation called punition or more commonly punishment, is but one mode. For, taken by itself, Government is in itself one great /vast/ evil: only except in so far as evil already produced by it, is done away or lessened, can any exercise of Government be performed - can the power of Government be in any way exercised, but evil is produced by it. But wherever, by evil thus produced, greater evil is excluded, the balance takes the nature, shape, and name of good, and Government is justified in the production of it. In this case unless productive of good in some other shape /in the account of good and evil, the evil produced and applied in the shape of punishment would unless it excluded some greater evil, or produced some preponderant good be all loss.

    Thus it is that where evil applied as punishment wd. be groundless, what will often happen, is - that evil produced, though designedly, is not causeless - is not unjustifiable