evidence of his right to a double portion; but being on a par in his
powers & wants, with his brothers and sisters, he should be on a par

also in the partition of the patrimony, and such was the decision of
the other members.

On the subject of the Criminal law, all were agreed that the
punishment of death should be abolished, except for treason and

murder; and that, for other felonies should be substituted hard labor
in the public works, and in some cases, the Lex talionis. How this

last revolting principle came to obtain our approbation, I do not
remember. There remained indeed in our laws a vestige of it in a

single case of a slave. It was the English law in the time of the
Anglo-Saxons, copied probably from the Hebrew law of "an eye for an

eye, a tooth for a tooth," and it was the law of several antient
people. But the modern mind had left it far in the rear of it's

advances. These points however being settled, we repaired to our
respective homes for the preparation of the work.

Feb. 6. In the execution of my part I thought it material not
to vary the diction of the antient statutes by modernizing it, nor to

give rise to new questions by new expressions. The text of these
statutes had been so fully explained and defined by numerous

adjudications, as scarcely ever now to produce a question in our
courts. I thought it would be useful also, in all new draughts, to

reform the style of the later British statutes, and of our own acts
of assembly, which from their verbosity, their endless tautologies,

their involutions of case within case, and parenthesis within
parenthesis, and their multiplied efforts at certainty by _saids_ and

_aforesaids_, by _ors_ and by _ands_, to make them more plain, do
really render them more perplexed and incomprehensible, not only to

common readers, but to the lawyers themselves. We were employed in
this work from that time to Feb. 1779, when we met at Williamsburg,

that is to say, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe & myself, and meeting day by
day, we examined critically our several parts, sentence by sentence,

scrutinizing and amending until we had agreed on the whole. We then
returned home, had fair copies made of our several parts, which were

reported to the General Assembly June 18. 1779. by Mr. Wythe and
myself, Mr. Pendleton's residence being distant, and he having

authorized us by letter to declare his approbation. We had in this
work brought so much of the Common law as it was thought necessary to

alter, all the British statutes from Magna Charta to the present day,
and all the laws of Virginia, from the establishment of our

legislature, in the 4th. Jac. 1. to the present time, which we
thought should be retained, within the compass of 126 bills, making a

printed folio of 90 pages only. Some bills were taken out
occasionally, from time to time, and passed; but the main body of the

work was not entered on by the legislature until after the general
peace, in 1785. when by the unwearied exertions of Mr. Madison, in

opposition to the endless quibbles, chicaneries, perversions,
vexations and delays of lawyers and demi-lawyers, most of the bills

were passed by the legislature, with little alteration.
The bill for establishing religious freedom, the principles of

which had, to a certain degree, been enacted before, I had drawn in
all the latitude of reason & right. It still met with opposition;

but, with some mutilations in the preamble, it was finally passed;
and a singularproposition proved that it's protection of opinion was

meant to be universal. Where the preamble declares that coercion is
a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an

amendment was proposed, by inserting the word "Jesus Christ," so that
it should read "a departure from the plan of Jesus Christ, the holy

author of our religion." The insertion was rejected by a great
majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle

of it's protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and
Mahometan, the Hindoo, and infidel of every denomination.

Beccaria and other writers on crimes and punishments had
satisfied the reasonable world of the unrightfulness and inefficacy

of the punishment of crimes by death; and hard labor on roads, canals
and other public works, had been suggested as a proper substitute.

The Revisors had adopted these opinions; but the general idea of our
country had not yet advanced to that point. The bill therefore for

proportioning crimes and punishments was lost in the House of
Delegates by a majority of a single vote. I learnt afterwards that

the substitute of hard labor in public was tried (I believe it was in
Pennsylvania) without success. Exhibited as a public spectacle, with

shaved heads and mean clothing, working on the high roads produced in
the criminals such a prostration of character, such an abandonment of

self-respect, as, instead of reforming, plunged them into the most
desperate & hardened depravity of morals and character. -- Pursue the

subject of this law. -- I was written to in 1785 (being then in
Paris) by Directors appointed to superintend the building of a

Capitol in Richmond, to advise them as to a plan, and to add to it
one of a prison. Thinking it a favorable opportunity of introducing

into the state an example of architecture" target="_blank" title="n.建筑术；建筑学">architecture in the classic style of
antiquity, and the Maison quarree of Nismes, an antient Roman temple,

being considered as the most perfect model existing of what may be
called Cubic architecture" target="_blank" title="n.建筑术；建筑学">architecture, I applied to M. Clerissault, who had

published drawings of the Antiquities of Nismes, to have me a model
of the building made in stucco, only changing the order from

Corinthian to Ionic, on account of the difficulty of the Corinthian
capitals. I yielded with reluctance to the taste of Clerissault, in

his preference of the modern capital of Scamozzi to the more noble
capital of antiquity. This was executed by the artist whom Choiseul

Gouffier had carried with him to Constantinople, and employed while
Ambassador there, in making those beautiful models of the remains of

Grecian architecture" target="_blank" title="n.建筑术；建筑学">architecture which are to be seen at Paris. To adapt the
exterior to our use, I drew a plan for the interior, with the

apartments necessary for legislative, executive & judiciary purposes,
and accommodated in their size and distribution to the form and

dimensions of the building. These were forwarded to the Directors in
1786. and were carried into execution, with some variations not for

the better, the most important to which however admit of future
correction. With respect of the plan of a Prison, requested at the

same time, I had heard of a benevolent society in England which had
been indulged by the government in an experiment of the effect of

labor in _solitaryconfinement_ on some of their criminals, which
experiment had succeeded beyond expectation. The same idea had been

suggested in France, and an Architect of Lyons had proposed a plan of
a well contrived edifice on the principle of solitaryconfinement. I

procured a copy, and as it was too large for our purposes, I drew one
on a scale, less extensive, but susceptible of additions as they

should be wanting. This I sent to the Directors instead of a plan of
a common prison, in the hope that it would suggest the idea of labor

in solitaryconfinement instead of that on the public works, which we
had adopted in our Revised Code. It's principle accordingly, but not

it's exact form, was adopted by Latrobe in carrying the plan into
execution, by the erection of what is now called the Penitentiary,

built under his direction. In the meanwhile the public opinion was
ripening by time, by reflection, and by the example of Pensylva,

where labor on the highways had been tried without approbation from
1786 to 89. & had been followed by their Penitentiary system on the

principle of confinement and labor, which was proceeding
auspiciously. In 1796. our legislature resumed the subject and

passed the law for amending the Penal laws of the wealth" target="_blank" title="n.国家；共和国；联邦">commonwealth. They
adopted solitary, instead of public labor, established a gradation in

the duration of the confinement, approximated the style of the law
more to the modern usage, and instead of the settled distinctions of

murder & manslaughter, preserved in my bill, they introduced the new
terms of murder in the 1st & 2d degree. Whether these have produced

more or fewer questions of definition I am not sufficiently informed
of our judiciary transactions to say. I will here however insert the

text of my bill, with the notes I made in the course of my researches
into the subject.

Feb. 7. The acts of assemblyconcerning the College of Wm. &
Mary, were properly within Mr. Pendleton's portion of our work. But

these relatedchiefly to it's revenue, while it's constitution,
organization and scope of science were derived from it's charter. We

thought, that on this subject a systematical plan of general
education should be proposed, and I was requested to undertake it. I

accordingly prepared three bills for the Revisal, proposing three
distinct grades of education, reaching all classes. 1. Elementary

schools for all children generally, rich and poor. 2. Colleges for a