"Treason, the Death Penalty, and American Identity" Topic

"In 1847, in a dusty plaza in Taos (now part of the American state of New Mexico), American authorities tried and executed a thirty-nine-year-old man named Hipolito Salazar for treason against the United States. He is the only person ever executed for this crime since the adoption of the United States Constitution. His story has faded into almost complete obscurity, but it tells us much about American national identity and whom we are willing (and not willing) to execute for acts of national betrayal.

According to the solemn declarations of judicial opinions and legal treatises, treason is the highest crime in American law, worse even than murder. Legal historians, however, know that such statements should not be taken at face value; the law in action is often quite different than the law stated in the books.

Since the late eighteenth-century, America has executed thousands of people for murder, but only a minuscule number for treason. In addition to the Salazar execution, a small handful of people were executed as traitors to the individual states during the American Revolution, and John Brown and Edwin Coppoc were executed for treason against Virginia in 1859 for their role in the raid on Harpers Ferry…"

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