Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/256

246 ON THE CRIMINAL LAWS, AND THE PRACTICE OF PRIVATEERING.

LETTER TO BENJAMIN VAUGHAN, ESQ. March 14th, 1785.

MONG the pamphlets you lately ſent me, was one, entitled, Thoughts on Executive Juſtice. In return for that, I ſend you a French one on the fame ſubject, ''Obſervations concernant l'Exécution de l’Article II. de la Declaration fur le Vol''. They are both addreſſed to the judges, but written, as you will ſee, in a very different ſpirit. The Engliſh author is for hanging all thieves. The Frenchman is for proportioning puniſhments to offences.

If we really believe, as we profeſs to believe, that the law of Moſes was the law of God, the dictate of divine wiſdom, infinitely ſuperior to human; on what principles do we ordain death as the puniſhment of an offence, which, according to that law, was only to be puniſhed by a reſtitution of fourfold? To put a man to death for an offence which does not deſerve death, is it not a murder? And, as the French writer ſays, Doit-on punir un dlit contre la ſocieté par un crime contre la nature?

Superfluous property is the creature of ſociety; Simple and mild laws were ſufficient to guard the property that was merely neceſſary. The ſavage's bow, his hatchet, and his coat of ſkins, were ſufficiently ſecured, without law, by the fear of perſonal reſentment and retaliation. When, by virtue of the firſt laws, part of the ſociety