Finally, in 1846, Michigan became the first state to abolish the death penalty (except for treason against the state), mostly because it had no long tradition of capital punishment (there had been no hanging since 1830, before statehood) and because frontier Michigan had few established religious groups to oppose it as was the case in the east. In 1852, Rhode Island abolished the death penalty led by Unitarians, Universalists, and especially Quakers. In the same year, Massachusetts limited its death penalty to first-degree murder. In 1853, Wisconsin abolished the death penalty after a gruesome execution in which the victim struggled for five minutes at the end of the rope, and a full eighteen minutes passed before his heart finally quit.[15]