And here a last remark is in order.  The killing that is permitted to save, is not permitted to avenge loss sustained; the law sanctions self-defense, but not vengeance.  If a man, on the principle of self-defense, has the right to kill to save his brother, and fails to do so, his further right to kill ceases; the object is past saving and vengeance is criminal.  If a woman has been wronged, once the wrong effected, there can be no lawful recourse to slaying, for what is lost is beyond redemption, and no reason for such action exists except revenge.  In these cases killing is murder, pure and simple, and there is nothing under Heaven to justify it.

Remembering the injunction to love our neighbor as ourself, we add that we have the same right to defend our neighbor’s life as we have to defend our own, even to protect his or her innocence and virtue and possessions.  A husband may defend the honor of his wife, which is his own, even though the wife be a party to the crime and consent to the defilement; but the right is only to prevent, and ceases on the event of accomplishment, even at the incipient stage.

CHAPTER LXXI.  MURDER OFTEN SANCTIONED.

All injury done to another in order to repair an insult is criminal, and if said injury result in death, it is murder.

Here we consider an insult as an attack on one’s reputation or character, a charge or accusation, a slurring remark, etc., without reference to the truth or falsity thereof.  It may be objected that whereas reputation, like chastity and considerable possessions, is often valued as high as life itself, the same right exists to defend it even at the cost of another’s life.  But it must be remembered that the loss of character sustained in consequence of an insult of this kind is something very ephemeral and unsubstantial; and only to a mind abnormally sensitive can any proportion be perceived between the loss and the remedy.  This is especially true when the attack is in words and goes no farther than words:  for “sticks and stones will break your bones, but names will never hurt you,” as we used to say when we were boys.  Then, words are such fleeting things that the harm is done, whatever harm there is, before any remedy can be brought to bear upon it; which fact leaves no room for self-defense.

In such a case, the only redress that can be had is from the courts of justice, established to undo wrongs as far as the thing can be done.  The power to do this belongs to the State alone, and is vested in no private individual.  To assume the prerogative of privately doing oneself justice, when recourse can be had to the tribunals of justice, is to sin, and every act committed in this pursuit of justice is unlawful and criminal.

This applies likewise to all the other cases of self-defense wherein life, virtue and wealth are concerned, if the harm is already done, or if legal measures can prevent the evil, or undo it.  It may be that the justice dealt out by the tribunal, in case of injury being done to u’s, prove inferior to that which we might have obtained ourselves by private methods.  But this is not a reason for one to take the law into one’s own hands.  Such loss is accidental and must be ascribed to the inevitable course of human things.