But where are our forbearance and our love, where is our regard for the temporal and eternal interests of man, where is our respect for the principles of the gospel, if we make the reformation of a criminal a less object than his punishment, or if we consign him to death, in the midst of his sins, without having tried all the means in our power for his recovery?
Had the Quakers been the legislators of the world, they had long ago interwoven the principles of their discipline into their penal codes, and death had been long ago abolished as a punishment for crimes.

As far as they have had any power with legislatures, they have procured an attention to these principles.

George Fox remonstrated with the judges in his time on the subject of capital punishments.

But the Quakers having been few in number, compared with the rest of their countrymen, and having had no seats in the legislature, and no predominant interest with the members of it, they have been unable to effect any change in England on this subject.

In Pennsylvania, however, where they were the original colonists, they have had influence with their own government, and they have contributed to set up a model of jurisprudence, worthy of the imitation of the world.
William Penn, on his arrival in America, formed a code of laws chiefly on Quaker principles, in which, however, death was inscribed as a punishment, but it was confined to murder.