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of many minor offenses, and the parties implicated in them are still unpunished. And much opposition has been made to the enforcement of the laws relating to the sale of intoxicating liquors, and to keeping open public drinking establishments on the Sabbath, but the commercial frauds referred to seem to be but characteristic of the period, and the controversies in respect to the liquor and Sunday laws can produce no mischief while confined to the use of legal means for the maintenance of real or supposed rights, or for influencing public opinion.

The extensive acceptance of the belief that crimes, especially those of a homicidal character, have increased in frequency, has led to the suggestion of many changes in the law, with a view to a remedy.

The changes most frequently insisted upon may be stated to be: 1st. The abolition of the grand jury system, and the substitution for an indictment of an accusation to be preferred by the law officers of the State. 2d. To take from parties charged with crimes the right to a change of venue. 3d. To disallow challenges to persons upon the ground of an opinion formed upon information obtained from printed publications, or, as some propose, without regard to the source from whence the information is acquired, if the proposed juror will swear that, notwithstanding any opinion he may entertain, he can try the case impartially. 4th. To establish additional restrictions upon the right of accused persons to demand continuances. 5th. To make death the penalty for murder; and, 6th. Abolish or greatly restrict the executive authority to grant pardons, and wholly take from that department the power to commute the death penalty to imprisonment for the life of the person convicted, or for any other term.

To those who have such confidence in mere legislation, that they assume that every abuse may be corrected and every evil repressed by laws, and to that other class, ignorant of the origin, history and reason of the institutions and rules and methods of procedure proposed to be abrogated or changed, and who welcome every change in the existing laws as an improvement, all the alterations proposed will be acceptable; but others will remember that the grand jury, one of the "institutions" of our free spirited fathers, and most of the formal and carefully guarded rules of criminal procedure that are now the subject of complaint, were devised to protect the lives and liberties of the people against the ag gressions and encroachments of power, and others, like that of confiding the measure of punishment upon convictions for murder to the jury, are the results of the observations of men of the most profound knowledge and the largest experience in the administration of criminal laws. They are parts of a judicious and well settled system, not perfect, but that combines greater advantages for the prompt administration of justice, with the proper guards for the safety of the rights of the citizen, than any that exists in any country or under any form of government.

In view of the necessity that has always been admitted to exist for careful regulations for the protection of individuals, it is painful to witness the mistaken zeal that prompts a portion of the public press and influential public bodies to urge fundamental changes, simply that citizens may be made more defenceless when pursued by the authorities of the law upon accusations of crime. Every change in the criminal laws that deprives parties accused of a means for obtaining an impartial trial, or that proposes to substitute the discretion of a judge or of a State's attorney for fixed and well defined rules of law or settled modes of procedure, is a sacrifice of the safety of the citizen. Happily, except on occasions when the public mind is excited by appeals to popular fears or prejudices, the passions of the American people are not cruel; but who is prepared to say, that when a citizen may be put upon his trial upon a charge that involves his life, in the midst of a community filled with prejudice against him, without the power to demand of right the removal of his trial to an impartial vicinage, with no right of continuance to await a better state of public sentiment or to obtain evidence, no challenge to his triers upon the ground of opinions formed against him, death the inevitable consequence of conviction, and the Governor without power, even upon the clearest facts, to arrest the bloody sentence, the vindictive prejudices of some community may not demand a victim, and that then a State's attorney may not be found who will consent to accuse, and the judge, upon whose discretion the rights of the citizen depends, yield to public clamor and consent to the sacrifice?

The "institution" of grand and petit juries is an essential part of the judicial system of a free State. Theorists who can demonstrate that the rule of a single wise man is better than that of the multitude, and law reformers who would substitute the discretion of a State's attorney or a judge for the deliberations of a grand jury or fixed rules of procedure, alike forget that no method of election has been yet devised that will insure the choice of the wisest for rulers or State's attorneys or judges, nor do they attach enough importance to the fact, that in a republic no system of laws can be devised that will, without endangering the public liberties, be effective for the prevention and punishment of crimes, unless the laws themselves provide for the participation of the people in their administration, and that neither public nor private rights can be secure when they are in any important sense subject to the discretion of any ruler or magistrate.

It seems to me, then, that, while the attention of the General Assembly should be directed to the present state of the criminal laws, and the rules of criminal procedure, with a view to their improvement, nothing should be done to enlarge the discretion of the courts in criminal cases, nor delude the people with the belief that any change that can be made will relieve them from the necessity of giving their own attention to the proper execution of the laws.

It is at once the vice and weakness of wealthy and prosperous communities, that a majority of those who should be the most capable and useful citizens, from purely selfish reasons, prefer to delegate the discharge of their most important public duties to others, and experience has demonstrated that whether the mercenaries who undertake the protection of the public interests, or who are by the indifference of the people allowed to seize control of public affairs, are the hired soldiers of a standing army or the traders in offices, who cajole, neglect and plunder the people, or those who make jury duty a trade, the result is the same: the degradation of the laws, contempt for public justice, and in the end all the securities for the safety of life, liberty and property are destroyed. I do not feel at liberty to consume much space in the discussion of the change in the law, insisted upon by many, to take from the jury on trials for murder the right to determine whether the party found guilty shall suffer death or be punished by confinement in the Penitentiary for any term exceeding fourteen years, and that may extend to the whole of his life, and make the judgment of death the absolute legal consequence of a conviction for murder.

I have no doubt of the right of the State to put persons to death, who by their own deliberate criminal acts make that course necessary for the public safety, nor do I question the existence of the right to inflict the death penalty as a punishment for crime; but I am quite as decided in the conviction that that mode of punishment has but little influence to deter from the commission of crime, and that on the other hand it is a worn out vestige of barbarism, that hardens and depraves the people. Deliberate homicide by public authority has much greater influence to weaken respect for human life than the commission of murder by lawless persons, and it is remarkable that the ecclesiastical bodies, and that portion of the so-called religious and the secular press that demand the more frequent infliction of death by judicial sentence, concede the whole point in dispute, when, impressed with the horrible and depraving influ ence of public executions, they insist upon the necessity of excluding those from the spectacle who are to be instructed and impressed by the example. It may be true that there are classes of persons who can only be restrained from the commission of crimes by the fear of death. There may be communities in which the example of the infliction of the death penalty would be productive of benefit, and it may also be true that monsters of crime may sometimes be found whose extermination is demanded, not to vindicate the authority of law, but the dignity of human nature. It would not therefore be judicious for the State to renounce the power to inflict death, but the propriety of the exercise of the power in any instance can best be determined by a jury drawn from the body of the people. And it may be proper for me to make some allusion to the probable influence of the exercise of the pardoning power by the Governor upon the administration of the criminal laws.

The executive authority to grant pardons, reprieves and commutations, is, under the Constitution, absolute, and to be exercised by him at his discretion, and like all discretionary powers confided to public officers, is extremely liable to abuse.

I have exercised the pardoning power, in proportion to the whole number of convictions in the State, more sparingly than any of my predecessors, and I am satisfied that I have done so in improper cases. But I have had the satisfaction of releasing persons from the Penitentiary after they had furnished to me the most unquestionable proof of their innocence of the alleged crimes of which the jury had found them guilty, I have, by pardon, shortened terms of imprisonment that were certified to me by the judges and juries imposing them to be excessive, and I have in more than one instance interfered for the relief of the poor and ignorant who were the victims of the arts of designing persons.

We know that the blindness of legal justice is but a fable, and that though the laws, in their letter and spirit, are just and humane, and equal, as a practical fact the wealthy and influential do disregard or violate them with a measure of impunity not permitted to the poor and friendless. We know, too, that the jails into which those who are accused of the commission of crimes and are unable to furnish bail are crowded-are moral pest houses-where vice is taught to the innocent, and the guilty made more depraved. We know that instances are not wanting in which jailers or their subordinates, alone or in conjunction with some of a class of professional men who dishonor the law and disgrace the courts that tolerate their presence, have deprived friendless prisoners of all they possess, and have then delivered them over to a certain conviction, their sentences of imprisonment aggravated and lengthened by the vile character of their counsel, who first robbed and then betrayed them. I have pardoned some of this class of unfortunates upon the ground that if the State cannot protect them it ought to make them the reparation of forgiveness.

No subject is more worthy of the attention of the representatives of an enlightened Christian people than the imperfect provision made by the laws of the State for the protection of the rights of the poor, the ignorant, the inexperienced and the friendless, in the criminal courts. The evil is most apparent in the cities and populous counties of the State. Every year the population of the State is increased by emigrants from all the nations of Europe, and from every State of the Union, who are of every grade of character and every degree of intelligence. Of the thousands that come into the State, many are ignorant of our language and our laws, and many are upon their arrival poor and often ill, dispirited and inexperienced. In the cities the missionaries of vice are ever active, and its temples are always open, and from their doors none are driven away; to these the inexperienced and unwary are often

tempted to resort, or from want of employment the irresolute are impelled to the commission of crime, or often they are made the dupes and instruments of those with whom crime is a trade, or, being strangers and friendless, they are readily suspected, and when arrested they are unable to find bail and are committed to jail, and if indicted, the judge, however humane and considerate, is compelled to entrust their defence to some lawyer without standing or experience in his profession, and a conviction follows, for there is no one to demand justice or implore mercy. It is time that the practice of delivering the living bodies of poor prisoners to legal students for professional instruction was abandoned, and I insist that provision should be made by law for the election or appointment, in the large cities and populous counties of the State, of suitable persons whose duty it should be to visit the places where persons are confined upon criminal charges, confer with and advise poor prisoners, protect them from oppressions and extortions, attend examinations, investigate the charges against them, advise with injured parties, and the court and State's attorney, with a view to the dismissal of prosecutions where the ends of justice would by that course be promoted, or with reference to the proper measure of punishment in cases where the punishment is discretionary with the judge, or in proper cases alone, or in conjunction with the counsel assigned by the court, manage their defense. A proposition to provide for the appointment of an officer to watch the administration of the laws from the standpoint of those who are accused of crimes is novel, but every one familiar with the administration of the criminal laws of the State, is fully aware of the fact that a truthful statement of all the wrongs inflicted upon persons charged with offences would prove that many crimes have been committed in the name of the law.

RAILROADS.

An important exception to the general disposition to obey the laws, which prevails throughout the State, is found in the refusal of common carriers of passengers and freights by railways to obey the constitutional and legal enactments provided for the regulation of that important interest, and the people of the State, aware of the refusal of this class of persons to obey the laws, and of the mischiefs their contempt of the authority of the State produces, look to the General Assembly to make further and efficient efforts to provide a remedy.

The report of the Railroad and Warehouse Commissioners, which is now in the hands of the printer, and will be laid before the General Assembly as early as possible, will contain full information as to the pretensions of the railway managers, and of the efforts made by the Commissioners to enforce the authority of the State over them.

Successful resistance to the Constitution and laws of the State subverts them. It can make no difference whether such resistance is made

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