Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land piratePitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
History
Life and bloody career of the executed criminal, James Copeland, the great Southern land pirate
Pitts, J. R. S. (James Robert Soda)
Copeland, James, 1823-1857; Criminals -- Gulf States -- Biography
Not in populous cities—not in the centres of accumulated wealth and
misdirected intelligence that integrity and the administration of
justice can be found. The highest functionaries of States have to bend
to these rings and cliques. Honor scorned, justice mocked, and shame
departed, what is there left to purify the national streams? Clans
who live by plunder and murder can, with their ill-gotten gains, find
plenty of law protection. Above all things, the Bench should be kept
pure and independent, so that the criminal, though rich, cannot escape;
and the poor and humble, if honest, can receive protection. Not as now,
when judicial decisions are measured according to political numbers and
the varied influences of wealth. If mercy is shown at all, let it be on
the side of the unfortunate and those who have had few opportunities
for improvement; and never on the side of those who have had all the
advantages of wealth and education, and who should set an example to
the subordinate classes of the community. Let the lessons cease to
be taught and children cease to learn that because a man is rich no
crime can hurt him; and if poor, though honest, he can be victimized
by a snap of the finger from some influential person at any time.
Is it any wonder at the increasing centralization of power? It is a
necessary consequence under present circumstances. The corruptions
and abominations have nearly reached the maximum height, and are at
present of such a frightful magnitude that some remedy, ere long, must
be adopted. Liberty abused must bring on reaction, sometimes for the
better, but oftener for evils as great as those desired to be remedied.
And now, in concluding this sketch of the trial, which was carried on
with so much absorbing interest and excitement, a brief recapitulation
of its paramount features may be of some utility in bringing within our
immediate view those incidents of it which are the most pregnant of
meaning as to the future consequences.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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