es that were less severe than whites ever committed (Encarta).
It was not long before capital punishment met opposition. The Quakers made
first movement against execution. They supported life imprisonment as a more
humane justice. Cesare Beccaria wrote On Crimes and Punishment, a book
criticizing torture and the death penalty, in 1764. Beccaria drove many
other philosophers, like Voltaire and Jerry Bentham, to question the
validity of using capital punishment (Grolier).
There are many forms of executions. Some have been labeled barbaric and
forbidden nearly everywhere. For instance, crucifixion, boiling in oil,
drawing and quartering, impalement, beheading, burning alive, crushing,
tearing asunder, stoning, and drowning are examples. Currently the only
accepted means of execution are electrocution, th
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