May 17, 1844
Brother Kurtz, a clergyman and editor of Lutheran Observer, is here quoted:
‘A number of individuals, with Mr. Garrison at their head, have been petitioning the Massachusetts Legislature to abolish capital punishment, and, in case their prayer should be denied, they ask that the gallows be erected near a meeting house, that the execution take place on the Sabbath day, and that the minister be the executioner’ We give the foregoing to show where this notorious individual has got to. What will be his next step, time alone will tell.”
January 3, 1845
A meeting held at which Garrison and others resolve to petition the legislature to “abolish capital punishment in this Commonwealth”. Includes the following: ” Resolved, That it is among the glorious objects of Christianity to save men’s lives, not to destroy them – to abolish the gallows and every other instrument of inhumanity, as well as war and slavery – to reclaim the criminal and not to ruin him – to overcome evil with good , and not to extract eye for eye, or tooth for tooth, or life for life.”
February 7, 1845
Under the heading, Foreign Intelligence, a notice about a man who now confesses to a murder for which another was executed. “This is not the first time, by many hundreds, that the innocent has suffered, instead of the guilty, in this awful and irrevocable manner. Down with the gallows!”
June 13, 1845
From the Providence Republican Herald, there is an unsigned letter to the Editor. ”I have always been an advocate for the infliction of Capital Punishment for the crime of murder, but I must say, the deplorable use made of the law recently, has entirely changed my mind on the subject. Since the philanthropists of England have undertaken an examination of the subject, they have ascertained that more than one hundred and fifty have been executed in England, within a few years, who have been proved innocent after their death …… you may say there is not the same danger in our country; but, sir, the danger is becoming great here …..”
January 9, 1846
Here is notice of the FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE ABOLITION OF CAPTIAL PUUNISHMENT, to be held on the 14th of January in Washington Hall, under the Boston Museum.
March 30, 1849
Under the title Shall He Be Hung?, here is an article about Washington Goode, a “colored man, a sailor, … under sentence of death”….noted is a petition to the Governor for the commutation of the sentence …signatures include Samuel May, Ellis Gray Loring, Wendell Phillips, H. I. Bowditch, James Freeman Clarke, J. A. Andrew. The signers claim that the evidence of his guilt is circumstantial, and of flimsy character…that many mistakes have been made, and they also make an appeal that “no good can spring from such an example” because he is “ignorant, friendless, degraded”.
April 13, 1849
A report from the N.W. Washingtonian of an enthusiastic meeting at Tremont Temple, at which about five hundred people signed a petition for Goode’s repreve The article includes a strong statement favoring correction rather then execution as the better way to assure the safety of the community. “Shall we be safer then to hang Washington Goode? No. So far as security is concerned, he can be safely kept in prison. So far as the example is concerned, the community justly fear the hanging, and require that it shall be in private. Its only effect upon the vicious will be to brutalize them, and sharpen their appetite for blood. If Goode shall be hung, we are all safer previous to the deed being committed, than we shall be afterward. But there is one other consideration, the reformation of the criminal himself. We never should lose sight of this. In securing this, we secure the safety of the community, and the abstract ends of justice….”
April 20, 1849
Here is a listing, submitted by J. M. Spear, of fifty-nine towns from which 5119
petitions have been collected, and forwarded to the legislature.
June 1, 1849
The same issue has a notice of a public meeting to be held in the Melodeon, to take into consideration the hanging of Goode, “and to effect the abolition of capital punishment in this Commonwealth in all cases”.
April 12, 1850
John M. Spear writes to Garrison, informing him of the number of people who have signed petitions to the Massachusetts legislature, advocating the Abolition of Capital Punishment. He lists 59 towns, indicating the number of people in each town who signed, a total of 5,618 people. He indicates that he has been informed that an additional petition, from Nantucket, included twelve hundred signatures.
