imagine what the office of the judge costs in this execution of it;
but I say that in these strong sensations he is lost, and is unable
to abstract the penalty as a preventive or example, from an
experience of it, and from associations surrounding it, which are
and can be, only his, and his alone.

Not to contend that there is no amount of wig or ermine that can
change the nature of the man inside; not to say that the nature of a
judge may be, like the dyer's hand, subdued to what it works in, and
may become too used to this punishment of death to consider it quite
dispassionately; not to say that it may possibly be inconsistent to
have, deciding as calm authorities in favour of death, judges who
have been constantly sentencing to death;--I contend that for the
reasons I have stated alone, a judge, and especially a criminal
judge, is a bad witness for the punishment but an excellent witness
against it, inasmuch as in the latter case his conviction of its
inutility has been so strong and paramount as utterly to beat down
and conquer these adverse incidents. I have no scruple in stating
this position, because, for anything I know, the majority of
excellent judges now on the bench may have overcome them, and may be
opposed to the punishment of Death under any circumstances.

I mentioned that I would devote a portion of this letter to a few
prominent illustrations of each head of objection to the punishment
of Death. Those on record are so very numerous that selection is
extremely difficult; but in reference to the possibility of mistake,
and the impossibility of reparation, one case is as good (I should
rather say as bad) as a hundred; and if there were none but Eliza
Fenning's, that would be sufficient. Nay, if there were none at
all, it would be enough to sustain this objection, that men of