Laws ... proportionate and mild should never be dispensed with. Let mercy be the character of the law-giver, but let the judge be a mere machine.
ATTRIBUTION:
Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), U.S. president. Letter, August 26, 1776, to Edmund Pendleton. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, p. 505, ed. Julian P. Boyd, et al. (1950).
