Essay on Crimes and Punishments

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1801 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XXXV, Of Sanctuaries. J.KE sanctuaries just? Is a convention between nations mutually to give up their cri-* minajs, useful? * In the whole extent of a political state, there should be no place independent of the laws. Their power should follow every subject, as the shadow follows the body. Sanctuaries and impunity differ only in degree, and as the effect of punishments depends more on their certainty, than their greatness, men are more strongly invited to crimes by sanc DEGREES tuaries, than they are deterred by punishment. To increase the number of sanctuaries, is to erect so many little sovereignties; for, where the laws have no power, new bodies will be formed in opposition to the public good, and a spirit established contrary to that of the state, History informs us, that from the .... '.T* . use. 'use of sanctuaries have arisen the greatest revolutions in kingdoms, and in opinions. Some have pretended, that in whatever . country a crime, that is an action contrary to the laws of society, be committed, the criminal may be justly punished for it in any other: as if the character of subject were indelible, or synonimous with, or worse than that of slave; as if a man could live in one country, and be subject to the laws of another, or be accountable for his actions to two sovereigns, or two codes of laws, often contradictory. There are also who think, that an act of cruelty committed, for example, at Constantinople, may be punished at Paris; for this abstracted reason, that he who offends humanity, should have enemies in all mankind, and be the object of universal execration; as if judges were to be the knights errant of human nature in general, rather than guardians of particular conventions between men. The place