From Capital Punishment to Guns, Old Fears Weigh Like a Nightmare on Today's
   the book Executing Democracy: Capital Punishment and the Making of
   Democracy: Capital Punishment and the Making of America.
   that the death penalty historically was part of the arsenal of violence
   that those Americans who supported the death penalty have always also
   pre-Civil War, there was a big movement to abolish capital punishment.
   the death penalty didn't even work back in the day. The slave owners
   But despite the fact that we know that, the death penalty has continued
   those who fear democracy, the death penalty is part of the grab bag,
   existed. But then they think that capital punishment will somehow help
   capital punishment is they always have in the back of their mind this