“But this is not to say that the society which inflicts capital punishment commits murder. Murder is an offensive act. The term cannot be applied legitimately to any defensive act. And capital punishment, however ineffective it may be and through whatever ignorance it may be resorted to, is a strictly defensive act,—at least in theory.”

Individual Liberty (1926), Anarchism and Capital Punishment

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Benjamin Ricketson Tucker 50
American journalist and anarchist 1854–1939

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“I have also seen it stated that Capital punishment is murder in its worst form. I should like to know upon what principle of human society these assertions are based and justified.”

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