Eighteenth Century Humanitarianism: Collaboration Between Europe and America
THE growth of a humanitarian spirit is clearly in evidence in the eighteenth century. Much of its literature inspired it, as well as reflected it, and a number of organizations aimed to ameliorate the sad lot of mankind. One of the hardest fights was against Negro slavery and the slave trade, and the most forceful campaigners in this struggle were the Quakers of England and America. The spirit and the letter of legislation affecting bonded whites was also affected by eighteenth century rationalism and humanity. But even before their influence was felt, a new world community that valued the life of man more highly than the old world demanded less frequently the ultimate penalty. Subject as it naturally was to English precedents, the colonial code reduced the great many offences still punishable by death in England to eleven in Massachusetts. These New England Puritans were more humane, too, in drawing up laws protecting women, children, strangers, servants, and dumb animals. Almost alone among the seventeenth century legislators, Preserved Smith notes, "the Massachusetts General Court forbade any man to exercise any tyranny or cruelty toward any brute creature which are usually kept for man's use." More fundamental changes in the character of the laws did not come until after the epoch-making works of Montesquieu and Beccaria. Stemming from these sources there accumulated a number of plans and discussions that called for a reconsideration of legal systems, particularly with reference to crime and punishment. Jefferson made a careful study of William Eden's "Principles of Venal J^aw (London, 1772), and into his C Vlace "Book the young Virginian copied long passages from On Qrimes and Punishments and extracts from Montesquieu. To them he was indebted for his sentiment that "capital punishment should be avoided as much as possible, and punish-