Adin Ballou
and the Hopedale Community

In "Capital Punishment: Reasons for Immediate Abolition," Ballou asks, "To whom will the putting to death of the criminal do any good?" He answers: "It will preserve no one's life, that could not just as surely be preserved by the judicious confinement of the criminal. It will not help God's administration of justice. It will not restore the murdered person to life. It will give no comfort to the murdered one's surviving friends, unless they are depraved enough to find comfort in retaliation... Many have been put to death who were afterwards ascertained beyond doubt to be innocent. Then their judges and executioners would have given worlds for the power to reverse the fatal sentence. But there was no remedy - no reparation."

In the second of the essays in this pamphlet, Ballou contrasts moral power, "the power which operates on the affections, passions, reason, and moral sentiments of mankind, and thereby controls them without physical force," with political power, the power of the state which rests ultimately on the recourse to coercive force.

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Catalog No. FAB-03
Pages: 20
Price: $3.00