for life, than to less criminal persons. We refer especially to the 2d part of the 16th note of the Appendix, page 232 of the translation. We are aware that in some, perhaps in many States of the Union, the pardoning power has been used more sparingly since that time; but it will be observed that there is no security against a return to the former state of things; nor is the effect of pardoning, though rare, yet abused in a few glaring cases, which attract universal notice, less injurious; for instance, if the member of a wealthy or distinguished family is pardoned, although guilty of a well-proved heinous crime, or if men are pardoned on political grounds, although they have committed infamous and revolting offences. Such cases have a peculiar tendency to loosen the necessary bonds of a law-abiding and law-relying community, which has nothing else, and is proud of having nothing else, to rely upon but the law.
Many years ago Mr. M. Carey said, in his thoughts on Penitentiaries and Prisons: "The New York committee ascertained that there are men who make a regular trade of procuring pardons for convicts, by which they support themselves. They exert themselves to obtain signatures to recommendations to the Executive authority to extend pardon to them by whom they are employed. And in this iniquitous traffic they are generally successful, through the facility with which respectable citizens send their names, without any knowledge of the merits or demerits of the parties. Few men have the moral courage necessary to refuse their signatures, when applied to by persons apparently decent and respectable, and few Governors have the fortitude to refuse."
To this statement we have now to add the still more appalling fact, which we would pass over in silence if our duty permitted it, that but a short time ago the Governor of a large State—a State amongst the foremost in prison discipline—was openly and widely accused of having taken money for his pardons. We have it not in our power to state whether this be true or not; but it is obvious that a state of things which allows suspicions and charges so degrading and so ruinous to a healthy condition of public opinion ought not to be borne with. It shows that leaving the pardoning privilege, uncontrolled in any way to a single individual, is contrary to a substantial government of law, and hostile to a sound commonwealth.[1]
A very interesting paper relating to the subject of pardon was furnished in the year 1846 by the Secretary of State of Massachusetts, and published by the House of Representatives of that Commonwealth. The paper is of itself of much interest to every penologist; but when we consider that Massachusetts justly ranks amongst the best governed States of our Union, its value is much enhanced; for we may fairly suppose that the abuse of the pardoning power exists in many of the other States in no less a degree. In many, indeed, we actually know it to exist in a far greater and more appalling degree.
From this document[2] we have arrived at the following result:—
- ↑ In some of the worst Governments, as those of Charles II., James II., and Louis XV., pardons were sold, but not by the pardoning ruler. It was the mistresses and courtiers who carried on the infamous traffic, though the monarchs knew about it.
- ↑ House of Representatives of Massachusetts, 1846, No. 63.
