5583. MURDER, Punishment for.—
As
there was but one white man murdered by the
Indians, I should be averse to the execution of
more than one of them, selecting the most
guilty and worst character. Nothing but extreme
criminality should induce the execution
of a second, and nothing beyond that. Their
idea is that justice allows only man for man,
that all beyond that is new aggression, which
must be expiated by a new sacrifice of an
equivalent number of our people.—
To Meriwether Lewis. Washington ed. v, 354.
(M.
1808)
