Words on the occasion of the execution of Timothy McVeigh
Invictus, by William Ernest Henly:
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
From The Second Treatise of Government, by John Locke:
ยง18: “This makes it Lawful for a Man to kill a Thief, who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his Life, any farther then by the use of Force, so to get him in his Power, as to take away his Money, or what he pleases, from him: because using force, where he has no Right, to get me into his Power, let his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away every thing else. And therefore it is Lawful for me to treat him, as one who has put himself into a State of War with me i.e. kill him if I can; for to that hazard does he justly expose himself, whoever introduces a State of War, and is aggressor in it.”
From The Social Contract, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau:
Book Two, Chapter Five: “Besides, every evil-doer who attacks social rights becomes a rebel and a traitor to the fatherland by his crimes, by violating its laws he ceases to be a member of it, and even enters into war with it. Then the preservation of the State is incompatible with his own, and one of the two has to perish, and when the guilty man is put to death, it is less as a Citizen than as an enemy. The proceedings, the judgment are the proofs and declaration that he has broken the social treaty, and consequently is no longer a member of the State. Now, since he recognized himself as one, at the very least by residence, he must be cut off from it either by exile as a violator of the treaty, or by death as a public enemy; for such an enemy is not a moral person, but a man, and in that case killing the vanquished is by right of war.”
Book One, Chapter Four: “Since the aim of war is the destruction of the enemy State, one has the right to kill its defenders as long as they bear arms; but as soon as they lay down their arms and surrender they cease to be enemies or the enemy’s instruments, and become simply men once more, and one no longer has a right over their life.”