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... Constitution
-- not surprisingly perhaps since capital punishment was in
widespread use throughout the world at the time, including in the
American colonies. ...
The First Congress of the United States also made reference to
capital punishment and authorized it for no less than 12 offenses,
including treason, murder, piracy, and forgery. ...
During the course of the 1800s, however, an increasing number
of Americans became concerned about the death penalty and in
particular the number of offenses for which it was a mandatory
punishment. In 1845, the American Society for the Abolition of
Capital Punishment was founded and by the end of the 1890s, a
number of states had made the death penalty discretionary
rather than mandatory.
Approximate Word count = 527 Approximate Pages = 2.1 (250 words per page double spaced)
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