Then after a trial, if a person is found guilty, the Constitution again guards the rights even of the guilty, by providing:
"_Excessive fines (shall not be) imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted._"(75)
When this constitutional guaranty was written persons then living could recall without doubt the barbarous punishments which had been imposed in civilized countries even for light offenses. Common hanging was not regarded as sufficient punishment. "Hanged, drawn and quartered" was often heard in the courts of countries which had been left behind. It was nothing uncommon to see persons upon the roadside in England left hanging to the gibbet for long periods of time where the people could see them as a warning. It was not uncommon in those times to have a penalty of death imposed for the offense of stealing.
It is almost impossible to read of the punishments of the olden days, even under decrees of courts, without a shudder. Therefore, every one in America should be filled with gratitude that in the adoption of our Constitution these excessive cruelties were forever ended.
We have in this country the death penalty only for the most grave offenses, and it is seldom imposed. Imprisonment is generally regarded as just and sufficient. I might spend an hour if we had time, telling you something of the horrible dungeons which served as prisons in the olden days, into which God's sunlight seldom entered; of the chains the prisoners had to wear; of the starvation; yes, and of the lash--inhumanities which one can scarcely conceive, and which can never disgrace the civilization of America.
Again, carefully guarding the rights and liberties of the people we find:
"_Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly __ convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction._"(76)
This is not a part of the original Constitution. It was adopted after the war had driven slavery from our shores. The spirit of America has from the beginning been exerted in enlarging the rights of human beings. Slavery existed before the adoption of the Constitution, and so strongly was it intrenched at that time in some of the colonies that it was impossible then to wipe it out.