Tuesday, January 28, 2020

How far did World War One effect the lives of people living in Britain between 1914 and 1918 Essay Example for Free

How far did World War One effect the lives of people living in Britain between 1914 and 1918 Essay Introduction How far did World War One effect the lives of people living in Britain between 1914 and 1918? World War One had many short-term effects on the people living in Britain between 1914 and 1918, some small and others large. However, I do not think that it had any large long-term effects, on Britain or on the people living in Britain at that time apart from on womens social standing. First I will look at large, short-term effects. D.O.R.A Or the Defense Of the Realm Act had quite a large-scale effect on Britain. It was also the cause of many other issues to be discussed in this essay, such as rationing. It originally began by allowing the government to control many aspects of the country completely; they could take over industries, factories and even people private land and houses for use in the war. They could also control how much people found out about the war through censorship. One of the first things the government did under DORA was to take control of the coal industry, and turn it towards helping the war effort, rather than putting money in private peoples pockets. During the war more changes were made, a lot of them affecting many aspects of peoples daily lives, under DORA people could not: Talk about military matters in public or spread rumors about military affairs anywhere Trespass on railways, bridges or allotments Fly kites or light bonfires or fireworks Buy binoculars Melt down gold or silver Give bread to dogs, chickens or horses Use invisible ink when writing abroad Buy whiskey or brandy in a railway refreshment room or a similar place Ring church bells As you can see there is a long list of things people were not allowed to do, as well as the government having the new powers already mentioned, the government also ordered for beer to be watered down, pub opening hours to be shortened and to not let people buy rounds or drinks in a pub. They also introduced the idea of putting the clocks forward by 1 hour during the summer, so that people could work longer while it was still light. These things altogether had quite a large short-term affect on the people of Britain, so much so that by the end of the war, people were used to the government controlling their lives completely, clearly this is something rather detrimental to Britain, it meant people could not always do what they wanted to do, restricting their right to free will. They could not fly kites, ring church bells, buy binoculars etc, and all of these smaller things, coupled with the larger things would have made a big difference to the people of Britain. I say D.O.R.A was a large short-term effect because at the end of the war, most of the acts passed under DORA were removed, the state no longer controlled buildings, or aspects of daily lives, apart from the new pub opening hours, which remained in effect until 1989, even though they were meant only for the war. DORA also had many other effects, which are in themselves issues to be discussed in this essay: Rationing Another example of Doras power can be seen in the form of rationing, because the government was able to take over and control land, they could take over farm land and turn its usage to producing what they wanted to be produced. They hired women to work the land (because men were away fighting), and did this in order to keep the country fed, but by 1917 the situation had become dire, German U-Boats were sinking one in every four of our supply ships, and there simply was not enough food for everyone to have exactly what they wanted. Food prices rose to double what they were in 1914, and since people had not asked for higher wages because they had wanted to support the war, they could not afford to pay. Rich people bought much more than they needed and hoarded it, whilst poorer people could not even afford to buy bread. Shops closed early because their stocks had run dry, and there were serious strikes over poverty level wages. The government then attempted to encourage people to economies on their food usage; leaflets, posters and articles were produced to try to get people to save as much food, particularly bread as possible. But none of their measures proved to be effective, so rationing was introduced, this meant that everyone had a set weekly allowance of food, comprising of sugar, meat, butter and beer, and they were issued with coupons that enabled them to get their set amount of food. As it turned out, by the end of the war, people were actually more healthy than they had been at the start, because they were eating a more balanced diet, the rich and the poor could only get the same amount of food as each other, so it also proved to be a much fairer method of supplying everyone in the country with enough food to live on. This was another short term affect, one under DORA, as once the war was over and the food supply was back to operational speed again, rationing ended and people were able to get as much, or as little food as they were able to before. Propaganda This will have had a much larger affect on the mind of the British citizen than any other effect of the war, although not being able to eat exactly what you wanted or do exactly what you wanted, these things were more physical when compared to propaganda, which had large physiological affects on people. DORA gave the government the right to control newspapers and other forms of media, in order to limit what the civilian population found out about the war. During the first few months of the war, where thousands of men were dieing in terrible ways, the government only reported good news, no reporter could go to France or to Belgium, and the control the government had was so incredibly totalitarian, they even kept the house of commons in the dark as to the full reality of the front line. For the first two years of the war most propaganda was rather crude, with many tales of British heroism and German atrocities, all highly patriotic, and completely supportive of the war. However as popular opinion changed the government had to adapt their propaganda strategies to cope with it. In 1916, appalling losses were being made at the battle of the Somme, with thousands of soldiers on both sides dieing daily, the government took this opportunity to attempt to show the people what the war was really like. What they filmed however was pre staged mock battles and scenes of soldiers going of the top bravely, and achieving much, they also showed pictures of dead and wounded men, something that had never been done before. This supposedly wakened a lot of people up to the harsh realities of the war, they were seeing so much that shocked and disgusted them, when really most of the footage was fake, and only half of the true story was being told. Propaganda was a powerful short term effect on what people thought of the war, it meant that because people did not know the full harsh reality of war, they kept on supporting it, it is likely that had the real story been told from the outset, the people may well have decided against the war. In its defense however, propaganda helped to keep the morale in Britain up when things were going badly, as the government could easily churn out a patriotic poster, or an awe inspiring leaflet. Below is a large effect, which had a lot more knock on effects than anything else. Women At War The countries male population had been severely reduced, because they were all out fighting on the front lines, so there were very few men left to farm, make munitions, and do all the other jobs that they used to do before the war, such as being a delivery driver. So women had to take over, the government formed the W.L.A or Womens Land Army, and women who signed up to this would work on farms around the country, planting, harvesting and looking after crops. They were also employed in industry, most commonly the munitions making industry, and as other forms of laborer. People found that the women were just as able to do the jobs as well as all the men were, and although they were not paid as high a wage as the men, the women found that they enjoyed working and earning a lot more money than they would have done in previous jobs, if they were employed at all. This was a much larger effect of the war, particularly as it led to women getting the vote in 1918 under the representation of the people act, they had proved they could do everything a man could do, and they had helped their country get through the war, although the right to vote was not given under equal terms until 1928, 10 years later, up until then only land owning women over 30 could vote. Women working in previously male jobs also led to help in the breakdown of the class system, because all women were involved, a rich land owner could be working on the field or in the factory right next to a poor dressmakers daughter. They found that it was possible to make friends with the lower classes, and most thoroughly enjoyed it. The same was happening to the male population, as all soldiers on the front line were equal unless they were higher up in the chain of command, so a rich man could find himself in a position of having his life saved by a poor lower class man, or vice versa. Some smaller, short-term changes Conscription A conscription act was issued in 1916, this stated that all men aged between 18 and 41 had to fight in the war, there was no option, because although at the start of the war they could not get people out to the front lines fast enough, as it carried on, the numbers of people wishing to lose their life for Haig and country began to dwindle, so conscription was the only thing that would ensure a steady flow of soldiers to be. After this all married men had to fight as well, and this then led to a huge shortage of workers in vital industries, which then led to women taking their places in the workplace, which then led to women getting the vote, and the eventual breakdown of the class system. Of course some people did not want to fight at all, even when they had to, these people were called conscientious objectors or conchies for short, however they did have to prove that they were really objecting to fighting for a reason of conscience, e.g. their religion or a deeply held belief that war is wrong. A lot of conchies were very badly treated, a lot were banded as criminals and placed in jail, some not even let out after the war was long over, and others could even be shot for being traitors. This was the first time conscription had been introduced in Britain, but like many other things, when the war finished, so did conscription. Conclusion There were many things that the First World War affected in Britain: food, the way people viewed the war, lively hoods and more were all altered in some way, most of the effects were temporary though, after the war they simply went away, and people went back to how it used to be before the war. All except for one effect, the way women had been treated before the war was as housewives and maids, fit only to do womens work at home, or at somebody elses home, they were thought of as the child bearers, and nothing much else. The war allowed women to prove they could be more than just that, after the war there were 400,000 less maids than there had been before it, women knew now that they could do whatever men could do, and do it well also. For their hard work, women won the vote, and eventually on equal terms as men, however, all did not change instantly, when the war finished many women went back to what they used to be doing, and the men came back to their old jobs as well, but I do not think this matters, as the ball had already been set rolling, women had proved that they were mans equals, and they could, and would do it again. I do not thing that World War One deserves to be called a Total War when compared to World War Two, although compared to previous wars such as the Boer war and the Napoleonic wars, World War One was the closest that had come to being a total war, people were much more involved in it than they ever had been before, there was conscription, bombing, women were commissioned to work in jobs previously only ever done by men, and the civilian population was being constantly bombarded by hundreds of propaganda messages. This was something people had never experienced before, never had a civilian felt so touched, so involved by the war, never had women worked in factories or had the vote, and civilians had never been bombed as they lay in bed before. Yet, compared to World War Two, WW1 was not total war, the bombing was really not at all severe, neither were the casualties, the weapons, the rationing or the everyday dangers when put next to World War Twos figures.

Monday, January 20, 2020

letter of confession :: essays research papers

~Before I begin this letter, I want you to know that the reason why I’m sharing this with you is because I feel that I have to be completely honest about something that’s very personal to me. Originally, I wanted to tell you, but I just did not feel comfortable and I did not trust you enough. But, I can not keep this from you any longer. I hope after I explain this that you can understand why I did so~   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The past two years of my life have been filled with extreme hardship. Although I have had positive things take place in my life, the bad always seems to outweigh the good. When I was going out with Lamar, my high school fling, a gynecologist in Newburgh told me that I had Abnormal Cells and she needed to take a closer look at them. She said not to worry, but that it crucial that she did a procedure to examine the cells carefully because if she didn’t, I could possibly develop Cancer in my Cervix. During this time, mind you, I was having unprotected sex with Lamar and he was the first boy I did that with. This â€Å"careful† procedure (known as a biopsy, coposcopy-not really sure how to spell this one) that she performed was one of the most uncomfortable things I ever had to go through. It involves doing something, that makes you feel like you have bad period cramps without having your actual period. After doing this close examination, I did not hear anything again from this doctor until about a year later, which at that time, I considered them incompetent. Before I went away to college, I went to the city to visit my mother’s GYN for a regular pap smear. She then wrote to me in college telling me that my cells were abnormal and that I needed to take some medication (basically this crap that I had to stick up in my coochie). She also told me that I needed to come in so she could do another check-up. So I took the medicine thinking (or rather hoping) that it would clear up whatever was going on down there. I went the GYN in early October. There, she told me that the pap in August should cells of H P V, a sexually transmitted disease, that if left untreated, could cause Cancer.

Sunday, January 12, 2020

Battle Cry of Freedom

United States History i| Battle Cry of Freedom| The Civil War Era by: James M. McPherson| | Sandra Dunlap| 4/16/2010| James M. McPherson was born October 11, 1936. He is considered to be an American Civil War historian and he is a professor at Princeton University. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his book Battle Cry of Freedom and Wikipedia states this was his most famous book. He holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Ph. D. and teaches United States History at Princeton University. Battle Cry of Freedom; The Civil War Era id a work of such vast scope necessarily emphasizes synthesis at the expense of theme. If there is a unifying idea in the book, it is McPherson's acknowledged emphasis on â€Å"the multiple meanings of slavery and freedom, and how they dissolved and reformed into new patterns in the crucible of war. † In spite of the existence of a growing class of urban workers and a burgeoning immigrant population, McPherson finds that â€Å"the greatest danger to American su rvival midcentury was neither class tension nor ethnic division.I feel it was sectional conflict between North and South over the future of slavery. † He dismisses the idea advanced by some historians that conflicts over tariff policy and states’ rights were more central to the political tensions of the 1850's than the South's â€Å"peculiar institution. † McPherson emphasizes that â€Å"by the 1850s Americans on both sides of the line separating freedom from slavery came to emphasize more their differences than similarities. McPherson is critical of previous literature that he says â€Å"lack the dimension of contingency-the recognition that at numerous critical points during the war things might have gone altogether differently† (857-858). The narrative style allows him to point out such critical moments that others would have missed or looked over. He carefully identifies instances where another outcome was possible, or even probable. His treatment of both sides in the war is evenhanded.The Compromise of 1850 was an attempt to brace a government ready to split apart with a few political two-by-fours: It gave the South a deferred decision on the question of slavery in New Mexico and Utah in return for a stronger fugitive slave law and the admission of California to the union as a free state. Four years later, the Kansas-Nebraska Act shattered this uneasy peace by repealing the Missouri Compromise line of 1820, which had banned slavery in the northern territories, and substituting the deliberately ambiguous doctrine of popular sovereignty, which left room for violent disagreement among the territorial settlers.The Kansas-Nebraska Act completed the destruction of the divided Whig Party and gave rise to the new, entirely Northern, Republican Party, whose stated objective was to prevent the spread of slavery. Although not all Republicans were motivated by sympathy for the Negro—indeed many were deeply antipathetic toward blacks and opposed slavery only in the economic interest of working-class whites—and although the party was pledged not to disturb slavery where it already existed, Southerners regarded it as a threat.The election of Republican Abraham Lincoln in the â€Å"revolution of 1860† precipitated the â€Å"counterrevolution of 1861,† the secession of the lower South and, after the firing of shots at Fort Sumter, of the upper South as well. In stressing the formation of the Confederacy as a â€Å"preemptive counterrevolution,† McPherson follows the model of historian Arno Meyer, who applied it to twentieth century Europe.Such a counterrevolution does not attempt to restore the old orders; it strikes first—preempts revolution—in order to protect the status quo before revolution can erupt. The secessionists magnified the potential threat posed by Lincoln's election, arguing that waiting for an â€Å"overt act† against Southern rights was comparable to waiting for a coiled rattlesnake to strike. The time to act was before the North decided to move against slavery, as the Southern radicals believed the â€Å"Black Republicans† ultimately would.McPherson's other important theme is that the Civil War was a political war, fought by citizens rather than by professional armies; as a consequence, political leadership and public opinion directly affected military strategy, and events on the battlefield reverberated on the home front and especially in Washington, D. C. For this reason he chose a narrative rather than a thematic format, integrating political and military events to emphasize complex patterns of cause and effect. Thus, he emphasizes that the failure of the Army of the Potomac to reach Richmond during the Seven Days’ Battle in the spring of 1862 changed Union policy rom the limited goal of restoring the Union into one of total war to destroy the Old South and consequently gave rise to the Copperhead faction of a ntiwar Democrats in the North. Antietam was a major turning point not only because Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was driven back across the Potomac, but also because it ended Confederate hopes for European recognition and military assistance, and gave Lincoln the military victory he had been waiting for as a backdrop for his Emancipation Proclamation.Especially in the North, where the two-party system still operated and the Republican position on slavery was still evolving and far from unified, Union military success or failure had far-reaching effects. The defeats at Bull Run and Ball's Bluff led Congress to establish the Joint Committee on the Conduct of the War, and the Union failure at Fredericksburg gave Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase, who aspired to replace Lincoln as the Republican nominee in 1864, an opportunity to encourage a senatorial investigation of the cabinet.Public morale in the North rose after the victory at Stones River and temporarily blunted the Cop perhead offensive against Lincoln's war policy; it plummeted again after the Confederate triumph at Chancellorsville on May 2-3, 1863, and Lincoln exclaimed in despair: â€Å"My God! my God! What will the country say? † McPherson gives military outcomes the central place in his explanation of Northern victory and Southern defeat; he is critical of theories that undervalue events on the battlefield.In his concluding chapter he reviews the various explanations that historians have advanced for the South's ultimate defeat, analyzing the weaknesses in each. Although the North was superior in manpower by two to one and had even greater economic resources, revisionist historians have denied that the South fought against odds so great as to make defeat inevitable; they have pointed out the number of small countries that won independence against even greater odds, not the least of which was colonial America against Great Britain.Such historians have argued instead that internal divis ions—the states’ rights governors who refused to cooperate with the central government, the disaffection of non-slaveholders, libertarian resentment of conscription and the restriction of civil liberties—fatally weakened the South's morale and destroyed its will to fight. McPherson discounts this argument, as well as the alternative interpretation that stresses the gradual development of superior Northern ilitary and political leadership that was evident by 1863, because both commit â€Å"the fallacy of reversibility†: If the outcome had been reversed, the same factors could be cited to explain a Southern victory. He particularly faults the loss-of-morale thesis, for â€Å"putting the cart before the horse†; defeat was the cause of Southern demoralization and loss of will, McPherson argues, not the consequence. McPherson faults most explanations of Southern defeat for failing to take into account the factor of contingency, the realization that at v arious turning points the war might have taken an entirely different turn.He identifies four critical turning points that shaped the final outcome. The first was in the summer of 1862, when Stonewall Jackson and Lee in Virginia and Braxton Bragg and Edmund Kirby-Smith in the West launched counteroffensives that prevented the Union armies from claiming what had appeared to be certain victory. This rally by the South meant that the war would be prolonged and intensified, and Southern success seemed assured before each of three successive turning points toward Northern victory.First, Union triumphs at Antietam and Perryville in the fall of 1862 turned back Confederate invasions and killed the hope of European recognition for the Confederacy; they may also have prevented a Democratic victory in the 1862 elections, which would have hampered the Lincoln government's ability to prosecute the war, and certainly permitted the president to make his Emancipation Proclamation from a position of political and military strength.The next critical time was during the summer of 1863, when success at Gettysburg, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga turned the North toward eventual military victory. The last one came in the summer of 1864, when enormous Union casualties of the spring campaign in Virginia—three-fifths as many battle deaths as in the previous three years of fighting—combined with the seeming lack of progress forced the North in the direction of peace negotiations and nearly resulted in the election of a Democratic president.William Tecumseh Sherman's capture of Atlanta and Philip Henry Sheridan's destruction of Jubal Early's army in the Shenandoah Valley made Union victory inevitable; only then, after the military situation became impossible, McPherson contends, did the South lose its will to fight. Several important long-term consequences of the Northern victory emerge in McPherson's analysis. Slavery and secession were killed forever, and the word â€Å"Uni ted States† became a singular instead of a plural oun; the â€Å"union† of states, as in â€Å"the United States are a republic† became a nation and an indivisible entity. Replacing the old federal government with which the average citizen rarely came in contact, except at the post office, was a new â€Å"centralized polity. † This national government levied direct taxes and collected them through an internal revenue service that it created itself, drafted citizens into a national army, imposed a national banking system, and instituted numerous other innovations.Eleven of the first twelve amendments to the Constitution, McPherson points out, had restricted the authority of the national government; beginning in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment, which abolished slavery, six of the next seven amendments greatly increased federal power at state expense. Finally, the balance of political power shifted from the South, which had controlled the presidency for tw o-thirds of the years since the founding of the republic, and had predominated in the selection of the House Speakers, presidents pro tem of the Senate, and Supreme Court justices.For fifty years after the Civil War no Southerner was elected to the presidency, none of the House Speakers or Senate presidents came from the old Confederacy, and only one-fifth of the Supreme Court justices were appointed from the South. McPherson contends that despite the South's appearance of being different from the rest of the United States, the argument can easily be made that until the Civil War it was actually the rapidly changing North that was out of step with the rest of the world. Although slavery had been largely abolished, most societies had an un-free or only semi-free labor force.Most of the world was rural, agricultural, and traditional; only the northern United States and a few countries in northwestern Europe were speeding toward industrial capitalism. Thus, Southerners were both sincer e and correct when they claimed to be fighting to preserve the republic of the founding fathers: limited government that protected property rights and served an independent gentry and white yeomanry in an agrarian society. The South's preemptive counterrevolution attempted to preserve this tradition, but Union victory in the Civil War ensured the dominance of the Northern vision of America.

Saturday, January 4, 2020

Capital Punishment And The Death Penalty - 1708 Words

Capital punishment has been around for centuries taking the life of guilty convicts to bring justice to the people. However, many people see the death penalty as a brutal action which no human should have to face, guilty or innocent. After the death penalty travelled around the world, it became very popular in America leading to many Supreme Court cases and protests. Endlessly, people have argued their viewpoints about whether the death penalty is constitutional in relation to the 8th amendment which states no â€Å"cruel or unusual† punishment. Politicians from every state including Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, have commented their personal views on the death penalty making it a very public dispute. Capital punishment is a very popular subject to debate over, and still a very prominent issue America is facing today. The death penalty has been around since the 18th century BC, rumored to start by King Hammurabi of Babylon. He once spoke the famous words, â€Å"an eye for an e ye†, which indicated equal punishments for equal actions. Other countries understood the wisdom and fairness of his words and adopted the death penalty as their own. The Romans executed capital punishment in gruesome ways such as, drowning and burning alive. After a few more centuries, Britain became very pro-death penalty giving it out to crimes such as stealing or cutting down a tree. Hanging was their main way of execution, and over 100 crimes were eligible to receive the death penalty. However in the 20thShow MoreRelatedCapital Punishment : The Death Penalty1482 Words   |  6 PagesMrs. McElmoyl 12/12/14 Capital Punishment As stated by former governor of New York, Mario M. Cuomo, Always I have concluded the death penalty is wrong because it lowers us all; it is a surrender to the worst that is in us; it uses a power- the official power to kill by execution- that has never brought back a life, need inspired anything but hate. (Cuomo 1) This is one of the main arguments against capital punishment (also known as the death sentence.) Capital punishment is the ability for a governmentRead MoreThe Death Penalty And Capital Punishment931 Words   |  4 Pageswritten down (Robert). The death penalty was applied for a particularly wide range of crimes. The Romans also used death penalty for a wide range of offenses. Historically, the death sentence was often handled with torture, and executions, except that it was done in public. In this century, the death penalty, execution or capital punishment, whatever you’d like to refer it as, is the result for committing capital crimes or capital offences and it is not in public. The death penalty has been practiced byRead MoreCapital Punishment : The Death Penalty1410 Words   |  6 PagesCapital Punishment in America In 1976 the Supreme Court of the United States of America ruled the Death Penalty constitutionally permissible. The debate over capital punishment has always been a topic of great controversy. Before the Supreme Court ruling in 1976 America had been practicing capital punishment for centuries. At the current time some states enforce the death penalty, while some do not. There are differences of opinion’s relating to whether or not the death penalty is the proper wayRead MoreCapital Punishment And The Death Penalty991 Words   |  4 PagesCapital Punishment Imagine your having a normal morning, eating breakfast doing your normal routine. Suddenly your phone rings and when you answer you hear the worst news possible. One of your family members has just been murdered in cold blood. You cry, mourn, then become angry. You attend the court hearing and you sit less than 20 feet away from the murderer. Do you truly believe this person deserves to live? Or should they face a punishment that is equal to their crime? Some may say CapitalRead MoreThe Death Penalty And Capital Punishment1569 Words   |  7 Pagesthe death penalty also referred to as capital punishment. The death penalty is both useless and harmful to not only criminals but also their potential victims. This paper uses these horrific facts to try and convince the reader that the death penalty should be done away with before it is too late, although that time may have already come. With supporting evidence to support my cause, I hope that the following information sways at least one reader to see the harm of keeping the death penalty an activeRead MoreCapital Punishment And The Death Penalty1235 Words   |  5 PagesWhat is capital punishment? Why do people support it, but yet people cherish lives? Is it a moral thing to do? Should one be for or against the Death Penalty? Let’s take a look deep into the world of justices and why capital punishment still exists in today’s society. Capital punishment or the death penalty is a feder al punishment given to criminals who are convicted of murders. It is the highest law punishment available that can prevent future murders by developing fear within them. Capital punishmentRead MoreCapital Punishment And The Death Penalty1017 Words   |  5 PagesName: Lucas Falley Topic: Capital Punishment Background: Capital punishment, or the death penalty, has existed for thousands of years. For as long as there has been organized society, the death penalty has existed in numerous cultures and civilizations. Throughout the years the methods have changed, but the use of capital punishment is becoming a pressing matter. Amnesty International reports that there are 140 countries worldwide that have abolished the death penalty, while over 50 countries stillRead MoreThe Death Penalty Is A Capital Punishment1271 Words   |  6 Pages What is the death penalty? The death penalty is a capital punishment that is punishable by death or execution. This is usually given to people that have committed serious offences or capital crimes. There are 31 states in the United States that are for the death penalty. Crimes that are punishable by the death penalty, vary from state to state. Examples of such crimes are; first degree murder or premeditated murder, murder with special circumstances, such as: intende d, multiple, and murder whichRead MoreCapital Punishment And The Death Penalty1539 Words   |  7 PagesCapital punishment, otherwise known as the death penalty, has been the center of debate for a long time. Capital punishment may be defined as the â€Å"[e]xecution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense† (Capital Punishment). Up until 1846, when Michigan became the first to abolish the death sentence, all states allowed legal practice of capital punishment by the government (States). Currently, there 32 states still supporting the death penalty and 18Read MoreThe Death Penalty Of Capital Punishment1480 Words   |  6 Pagesjustice system, such as the death penalty. Capital punishment has been used many times in history all around the world, and it was quite popular. Many people argue that capital punishment is useful in deterring crime and that it is only fair that criminals receive death as punishment for a heinous crim e. On the contrary, others see the death penalty as a violation of the 8th amendment. It restricts excessive fines, and it also does not allow cruel and unusual punishment to be inflicted upon criminals