Reference no: EM133688617

Assignment:

Video: The LAST 24 Hours of a Death Row Inmate (Hour by Hour)

1) According to the video, how did public perception of the death penalty changed over time?

2) What was the most surprising fact that you learned about from the video?

3) (From the reading.) How did Lincoln resolve his concerns about executing American Indian combatants?

Dakota Hanging

The largest mass execution in American history took place on December 26, 1862. The U.S. Government hanged 38 Dakota Indians (sometimes called Santee Sioux) for murder and rape during the Dakota War (formerly known as the Santee Uprising). In August 1862, starving Dakota tried to force settlers off the Minnesota lands the Indians had ceded to the government in exchange for supplies that never arrived. More than 600 settlers, between 100 and 300 Indians, and more than 100 soldiers died in the conflict. A military commission sentenced 303 surrendered Indians to death. President Lincoln, though, recognized that executing Indians for fighting Americans would establish a dangerous precedent for his own troops. If the US government could kill Indian combatants, what would stop it from killing Confederates? And what would stop Confederates from killing surrendering Union soldiers in turn? Lincoln found a way to split the baby. He commuted the sentences of any Indian whose crimes were related to battles, upholding execution only for those convicted of rape or murder of civilians. Then, after making a first move toward defining "war crimes," the government hanged 38 men in Mankato, Minnesota.