Beginning of Essay
Capital Punishment, legal infliction of the death penalty; in modern law, corporal punishment in its most severe form. Lynching, in contrast to capital punishment, is the unauthorized, illegal use of death as a punishment. The usual alternative to the death penalt ....

Middle of Essay
.... recognized, and as a result, 1000 or more persons were sentenced to death each year (although most sentences were commuted by royal pardon). In the American colonies before the Revolution, the death penalty was commonly authorized for a wide variety of crimes. Blacks, whether slave or free, were threatened with death for many crimes that were punished less severely when committed by whites. The Reform Movement Efforts to abolish the death penalty did not gather momentum until the end of the 18th century; in England and America this reform was led by the Quakers (Society of Friends). In Europe, a short treatise, On Crimes and Punishments (1764), by ....