Thomas Jefferson's Autobiography A New Capitol at Richmond
by Thomas Jefferson
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 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, 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 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 solitary confinement 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 solitary confinement. 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 solitary confinement 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 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 assembly concerning the College of Wm. &
Mary, were properly within Mr. Pendleton's portion of our work. But
these related chiefly 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
middle degree of instruction, calculated for the common purposes of
life, and such as would be desirable for all who were in easy
circumstances. And 3d. an ultimate grade for teaching the sciences
generally, & in their highest degree. The first bill proposed to lay
off every county into Hundreds or Wards, of a proper size and
population for a school, in which reading, writing, and common
arithmetic should be taught; and that the whole state should be
divided into 24 districts, in each of which should be a school for
classical learning, grammar, geography, and the higher branches of
numerical arithmetic. The second bill proposed to amend the
constitution of Wm. & Mary College, to enlarge it's sphere of
science, and to make it in fact an University. The third was for the
establishment of a library. These bills were not acted on until the
same year '96. and then only so much of the first as provided for
elementary schools. The College of Wm. & Mary was an establishment
purely of the Church of England, the Visitors were required to be all
of that Church; the Professors to subscribe it's 39 Articles, it's
Students to learn it's Catechism, and one of its fundamental objects
was declared to be to raise up Ministers for that church. The
religious jealousies therefore of all the dissenters took alarm lest
this might give an ascendancy to the Anglican sect and refused acting
on that bill. Its local eccentricity too and unhealthy autumnal
climate lessened the general inclination towards it. And in the
Elementary bill they inserted a provision which completely defeated
it, for they left it to the court of each county to determine for
itself when this act should be carried into execution, within their
county. One provision of the bill was that the expenses of these
schools should be borne by the inhabitants of the county, every one
in proportion to his general tax-rate. This would throw on wealth
the education of the poor; and the justices, being generally of the
more wealthy class, were unwilling to incur that burthen, and I
believe it was not suffered to commence in a single county. I shall
recur again to this subject towards the close of my story, if I
should have life and resolution enough to reach that term; for I am
already tired of talking about myself.
The bill on the subject of slaves was a mere digest of the
existing laws respecting them, without any intimation of a plan for a
future & general emancipation. It was thought better that this
should be kept back, and attempted only by way of amendment whenever
the bill should be brought on. The principles of the amendment
however were agreed on, that is to say, the freedom of all born after
a certain day, and deportation at a proper age. But it was found
that the public mind would not yet bear the proposition, nor will it
bear it even at this day. Yet the day is not distant when it must
bear and adopt it, or worse will follow. Nothing is more certainly
written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free.
Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live
in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible
lines of distinction between them. It is still in our power to
direct the process of emancipation and deportation peaceably and in
such slow degree as that the evil will wear off insensibly, and their
place be pari passu filled up by free white laborers. If on the
contrary it is left to force itself on, human nature must shudder at
the prospect held up. We should in vain look for an example in the
Spanish deportation or deletion of the Moors. This precedent would
fall far short of our case.
I considered 4 of these bills, passed or reported, as forming a
system by which every fibre would be eradicated of antient or future
aristocracy; and a foundation laid for a government truly republican.
The repeal of the laws of entail would prevent the accumulation and
perpetuation of wealth in select families, and preserve the soil of
the country from being daily more & more absorbed in Mortmain. The
abolition of primogeniture, and equal partition of inheritances
removed the feudal and unnatural distinctions which made one member
of every family rich, and all the rest poor, substituting equal
partition, the best of all Agrarian laws. The restoration of the
rights of conscience relieved the people from taxation for the
support of a religion not theirs; for the establishment was truly of
the religion of the rich, the dissenting sects being entirely
composed of the less wealthy people; and these, by the bill for a
general education, would be qualified to understand their rights, to
maintain them, and to exercise with intelligence their parts in
self-government: and all this would be effected without the violation
of a single natural right of any one individual citizen. To these
too might be added, as a further security, the introduction of the
trial by jury, into the Chancery courts, which have already ingulfed
and continue to ingulf, so great a proportion of the jurisdiction
over our property.
