Notions of the Americans

—You know not what you ask! I have already sent you an imperfect account (I must confess) of the jurisprudence of the United States, and now you ask me for what you are pleased to call an outline of its civil and criminal law. Do you know there are four-and-twenty states, one district, and four territories in this country, and that each of them has its own laws, varying in some particulars of form and of policy from those of all the rest? My answer shall, therefore, be very short, nor should it be given at all, did I not know that various absurdities are circulated in Europe, in this very matter, by men who travel here, and who rarely possess a knowledge of, or give themselves the trouble to inquire into, the true condition of society, whether considered in reference to its conventional tone, or to its positive institutions.

The criminal law of the United States is more sanguinary than that of any particular state. Piracy, treason, murder, robberies of the mail, in which the life of the person in charge is endangered, and a few other offences, are punished with death. Crimes committed on the high seas, in certain reservations, such as forts, light-houses, &c, are also punished by the laws of the confederation. Smaller offences are punished by fines, or imprisonment, or by both. Some of the states inflict death for a variety of offences, especially the slave-holding communities; others again are very tender of human life.