Hanging Quotes
As he signed the Declaration of Independence John Hancock stated "We must all be unanimous; there must be no pulling different ways; we must all hang together." Franklin replied:
Public Hangings in America were not abolished for another six decades. See Quotation 644484 in Related Quotes.
William the Conqueror. This is one of the first if not the first nationwide abolition of capital punishment in history. Ironically, the two alternatives that the abolition law allowed would both be illegal and repugnant to us today even though we allow capital punishment.
He was being cheered by a large crowd.
In 1938 when Hitler started his military operatiomn to overrun Europe, he abolished beheading with the axe a traditional and barbarous form of capital punishment. The two legal methods of execution in Germany after this decree were hanging and a version of the guillotine.
Marat was one of the leaders of the French Revolution who advocated the execution of so many people that became known as the “Reign of Terror.” His name is associated with massive bloody violence by the existing government. Morris observed that the English system executed far more people over the years, but was not looked upon as so heinous.
The Posse Comitatus credo called for the execution of tax collectors. See {583355}.
South Carolina passed a state law which overrode and nullified Federal Laws that they did not like. It was a type of secession. President Jackson, in his own blunt style, let them know that they had better not try to implement their nullification law. Of all the Presidents in American History, Jackson had the least respect for Constitutionality and due process. He had a history of summary execution where he was the judge, jury and almost the personal executioner. He is the only president in American history who refused to obey and order of the Supreme Court. There were few who doubted that he would make good on his threat. The South Carolina convention reconvened and repealed its Nullification Ordinance on March 11, 1833.
He was a Protestant liberal and opposed to the English rule of Ireland and the discrimination against the Catholics. To make an example to inhibit Irish protestants from joining the Society of United Irishmen, he was accused of giving an oath to a British Soldier that he would support Irish independence. This had been made a capital crime shortly before. Actually, it was another member of the Society who administered the oath, but the prosecutor arranged for perjured testimony to convict the more prominent Orr. His execution was remembered by liberal Catholics and Protestants alike and in the rebellion the following year the rebel battle cry was “Remember Orr”.
A demonstration on Capitol Hill was threatened, protesting the administration's policies with respect to the Bank of the United States. A congressional delegation visited the President and asked his plans to cope with the emergency:
John Holloway and Benjamin Haggerty went to the scaffold on 22 February 1807 still protesting their innocence over the murder of John Cole Steele on Hounslow Heath five years earlier. They were joined by Elizabeth Godfrey who had been convicted of the wilful murder of Richard Prince the previous Christmas, by stabbing him in the eye with a pocketknife. They were hanged together. According to the Newgate Calendar, a monthly journal of the executions at Newgate Prison in London. It was first published in the middle of the 18th century and later became a monthly magazine of the most salacious crimes in England. This quotation illustrates the great popularity that public execution had become in England. The drew more spectators than athletic events, theaters, or concerts. On this occasion in 1807 there were thosands of deaths and casualties from the unrully and unsupervised mob of spectators.
