Thomas Jefferson - Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson

T >> Thomas Jefferson >> Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson

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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 learned 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 and hardened depravity
of morals and character. To 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 ancient 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, and 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 of which, however, admit of future correction. With
respect to 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. Its
principle, accordingly, but not its 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 mean while,
the public opinion was ripening, by time, by reflection, and by the
example of Pennsylvania, where labor on the highways had been tried,
without approbation, from 1786 to '89, and 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
and manslaughter, preserved in my bill, they introduced the new terms of
murder in the first and second 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. [See Appendix, Note E.]

The acts of Assembly concerning the College of William and Mary, were
properly within Mr. Pendleton's portion of the work; but these related
chiefly to its revenue, while its constitution, organization, and scope
of science, were derived from its 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. 1st. Elementary schools, for all children generally, rich
and poor. 2nd. 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, 3rd., an ultimate grade for
teaching the sciences generally, and 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 twenty-four 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 William and Mary college, to enlarge its sphere of science, and to
make it in fact a 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 William and Mary was an establishment purely of the Church
of England; the Visitors were required to be all of that Church; the
Professors to subscribe its Thirty-nine Articles; its Students to learn
its 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 and
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, have 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 four of these bills, passed or reported, as forming a
system by which every fibre would be eradicated of ancient 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 and 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 ingulphed, and continue to ingulph, so great
a proportion of the jurisdiction over our property.

On the 1st of June, 1779, I was appointed Governor of the Commonwealth,
and retired from the legislature. Being elected, also, one of the
Visitors of William and Mary college, a self-electing body, I effected,
during my residence in Williamsburg that year, a change in the
organization of that institution, by abolishing the Grammar school,
and the two professorships of Divinity and Oriental languages, and
substituting a professorship of Law and Police, one of Anatomy,
Medicine, and Chemistry, and one of Modern Languages; and the charter
confining us to six professorships, We added the Law of Nature and
Nations, and the Fine Arts, to the duties of the Moral professor, and
Natural History to those of the professor of Mathematics and Natural
Philosophy.

Being now, as it were, identified with the Commonwealth itself, to write
my own history, during the two years of my administration, would be to
write the public history of that portion of the revolution within this
state. This has been done by others, and particularly by Mr. Girardin,
who wrote his Continuation of Burke's History of Virginia, while at
Milton in this neighborhood, had free access to all my papers while
composing it, and has given as faithful an account as I could myself.
For this portion, therefore, of my own life, I refer altogether to his
history. From a belief that, under the pressure of the invasion under
which we were then laboring, the public would have more confidence in a
military chief, and that the military commander, being invested with the
civil power also, both might be wielded with more energy, promptitude,
and effect for the defence of the state, I resigned the administration
at the end of my second year, and General Nelson was appointed to
succeed me.

Soon after my leaving Congress, in September, '76, to wit, on the last
day of that month, I had been appointed, with Dr. Franklin, to go to
France, as a Commissioner to negotiate treaties of alliance and commerce
with that government. Silas Deane, then in France, acting as agent for
procuring military stores,* was joined with us in commission. But such
was the state of my family that I could not leave it, nor could I expose
it to the dangers of the sea, and of capture by the British ships, then
covering the ocean. I saw, too, that the laboring oar was really at
home, where much was to be done, of the most permanent interest,
in new-modelling our governments, and much to defend our fanes and
fire-sides from the desolations of an invading enemy, pressing on our
country in every point. I declined, therefore, and Dr. Lee was appointed
in my place. On the 15th of June, 1781, I had been appointed, with
Mr. Adams, Dr. Franklin, Mr. Jay, and Mr. Laurens, a Minister
Plenipotentiary for negotiating peace, then expected to be effected
through the mediation of the Empress of Russia. The same reasons obliged
me still to decline; and the negotiation was in fact never entered on.
But, in the autumn of the next year, 1782, Congress receiving assurances
that a general peace would be concluded in the winter and spring, they
renewed my appointment on the 13th of November of that year. I had, two
months before that, lost the cherished companion of my life, in whose
affections, unabated on both sides, I had lived the last ten years in
unchequered happiness. With the public interests, the state of my mind
concurred in recommending the change of scene proposed; and I accepted
the appointment, and left Monticello on the 19th of December, 1782,
for Philadelphia, where I arrived on the 27th. The Minister of France,
Luzerne, offered me a passage in the Romulus frigate, which I accepted;
but she was then lying a few miles below Baltimore, blocked up in the
ice. I remained, therefore, a month in Philadelphia, looking over the
papers in the office of State, in order to possess myself of the general
state of our foreign relations, and then went to Baltimore, to await
the liberation of the frigate from the ice. After waiting there nearly
a month, we received information that a Provisional treaty of peace
had been signed by our Commissioners on the 3rd of September, 1782, to
become absolute, on the conclusion of peace between France and Great
Britain. Considering my proceeding to Europe as now of no utility to the
public, I returned immediately to Philadelphia, to take the orders of
Congress, and was excused by them from further proceeding. I therefore
returned home, where I arrived on the 15th of May, 1783.

* His ostensible character was to be that of a merchant, his
real one that of agent for military supplies, and also for
sounding the dispositions of the government of France, and
seeing how far they would favor us, either secretly or
openly. His appointment had been by the Committee of Foreign
Correspondence, March, 1776.

On the 6th of the following month, I was appointed by the legislature
a delegate to Congress, the appointment to take place on the 1st of
November ensuing, when that of the existing delegation would expire. I
accordingly left home on the 16th of October, arrived at Trenton, where
Congress was sitting, on the 3rd of November, and took my seat on the
4th, on which day Congress adjourned, to meet at Annapolis on the 26th.

Congress had now become a very small body, and the members very remiss
in their attendance on its duties, insomuch that a majority of the
states, necessary by the Confederation to constitute a House, even for
minor business, did not assemble until the 13th of December.

They, as early as January 7, 1782, had turned their attention to the
monies current in the several states, and had directed the Financier,
Robert Morris, to report to them a table of rates, at which the foreign
coins should be received at the treasury. That officer, or rather his
assistant, Gouverneur Morris, answered them on the 15th, in an able and
elaborate statement of the denominations of money current in the several
states, and of the comparative value of the foreign coins chiefly in
circulation with us, He went into the consideration of the necessity of
establishing a standard of value with us, and of the adoption of a money
unit. He proposed for that unit, such a fraction of pure silver as
would be a common measure of the penny of every state, without leaving
a fraction. This common divisor he found to be 1/1440 of a dollar, or
1/1600 the crown sterling. The value of a dollar was, therefore, to be
expressed by 1440 units, and of a crown by 1600; each unit containing
a quarter of a grain of fine silver. Congress turning again their
attention to this subject the following year, the Financier, by a letter
of April 30,1783, further explained and urged the unit he had proposed:
but nothing more was done on it until the ensuing year, when it was
again taken up, and referred to a committee, of which I was a member.
The general views of the Financier were sound, and the principle was
ingenious, on which he proposed to found his unit; but it was too minute
for ordinary use, too laborious for computation, either by the head or
in figures. The price of a loaf of bread, 1/20 of a dollar, would be
72 units. A pound of butter, 1/5 of a dollar, 288 units. A horse, or
bullock, of eighty dollars' value, would require a notation of six
figures, to wit, 115,200, and the public debt, suppose of eighty
millions, would require twelve figures, to wit, 115,200,000,000 units.
Such a system of money-arithmetic would be entirely unmanageable for the
common purposes of society. I proposed, therefore, instead of this,
to adopt the Dollar as our unit of account and payment, and that its
divisions and subdivisions should be in the decimal ratio. I wrote some
Notes on the subject, which I submitted to the consideration of the
Financier. I received his answer and adherence to his general system,
only agreeing to take for his unit one hundred of those he first
proposed, so that a Dollar should be 14 40/100 and a crown 16 units. I
replied to this, and printed my Notes and Reply on a flying sheet, which
I put into the hands of the members of Congress for consideration, and
the Committee agreed to report on my principle. This was adopted the
ensuing year, and is the system which now prevails. I insert, here, the
Notes and Reply, as showing the different views on which the adoption of
our money system hung. [See Appendix, note F.]The divisions into dismes,
cents, and mills is now so well understood, that it would be easy of
introduction into the kindred branches of weights and measures. I use,
when I travel, an Odometer of Clarke's invention, which divides the mile
into cents, and I find every one comprehends a distance readily, when
stated to him in miles and cents; so he would in feet and cents, pounds
and cents, &c.

The remissness of Congress, and their permanent session began to be a
subject of uneasiness; and even some of the legislatures had recommended
to them intermissions, and periodical sessions. As the Confederation had
made no provision for a visible head of the government, during vacations
of Congress, and such a one was necessary to superintend the executive
business, to receive and communicate with foreign ministers and nations,
and to assemble Congress on sudden and extraordinary emergencies, I
proposed, early in April, the appointment of a committee, to be called
the 'Committee of the States,' to consist of a member from each state,
who should remain in session during the recess of Congress: that the
functions of Congress should be divided into executive and legislative,
the latter to be reserved, and the former, by a general resolution, to
be delegated to that Committee. This proposition was afterwards
agreed to; a Committee appointed who entered on duty on the subsequent
adjournment of Congress, quarrelled very soon, split into two parties,
abandoned their post, and left the government without any visible head,
until the next meeting of Congress. We have since seen the same thing
take place, in the Directory of France; and I believe it will for ever
take place in any Executive consisting of a plurality. Our plan, best, I
believe, combines wisdom and practicability, by providing a plurality of
Counsellors, but a single Arbiter for ultimate decision. I was in France
when we heard of this schism and separation of our Committee, and,
speaking with Dr. Franklin of this singular disposition of men to
quarrel, and divide into parties, he gave his sentiments, as usual, by
way of Apologue. He mentioned the Eddystone light-house, in the
British channel, as being built on a rock, in the mid-channel, totally
inaccessible in winter, from the boisterous character of that sea, in
that season; that, therefore, for the two keepers employed to keep up
the lights, all provisions for the winter were necessarily carried to
them in autumn, as they could never be visited again till the return of
the milder season; that, on the first practicable day in the spring, a
boat put off to them with fresh supplies. The boatmen met at the door
one of the keepers, and accosted him with a 'How goes it, friend?' 'Very
well.' 'How is your companion?' 'I do not know.' 'Don't know? Is not he
here?' 'I can't tell.' 'Have not you seen him to-day?' 'No.' 'When did
you see him?' 'Not since last fall.' 'You have killed him?' 'Not
I, indeed.' They were about to lay hold of him, as having certainly
murdered his companion; but he desired them to go up stairs and examine
for themselves. They went up, and there found the other keeper. They had
quarrelled, it seems, soon after being left there, had divided into two
parties, assigned the cares below to one, and those above to the other,
and had never spoken to, or seen, one another since.

But to return to our Congress at Annapolis. The definitive treaty of
peace which had been signed at Paris on the 3rd of September, 1783, and
received here, could not be ratified without a House of nine states.
On the 23rd of December, therefore, we addressed letters to the several
Governors, stating the receipt of the definitive treaty; that seven
states only were in attendance, while nine were necessary to its
ratification; and urging them to press on their delegates the necessity
of their immediate attendance. And on the 26th, to save time, I moved
that the Agent of Marine (Robert Morris) should be instructed to have
ready a vessel at this place, at New York, and at some Eastern port,
to carry over the ratification of the treaty when agreed to. It met the
general sense of the House, but was opposed by Dr. Lee, on the ground
of expense, which it would authorize the Agent to incur for us; and,
he said, it would be better to ratify at once, and send on the
ratification. Some members had before suggested, that seven states were
competent to the ratification. My motion was therefore postponed, and
another brought forward by Mr. Read, of South Carolina, for an immediate
ratification. This was debated the 26th and 27th. Read, Lee, Williamson,
and Jeremiah Chase urged that ratification was a mere matter of form;
that the treaty was conclusive from the moment it was signed by the
ministers; that, although the Confederation requires the assent of nine
states to enter into a treaty, yet, that its conclusion could not be
called the entrance into it; that supposing nine states requisite, it
would be in the power of five states to keep us always at war; that nine
states had virtually authorized the ratification, having ratified
the provisional treaty, and instructed their ministers to agree to a
definitive one in the same terms, and the present one was, in fact,
substantially, and almost verbatim, the same; that there now remain
but sixty-seven days for the ratification, for its passage across the
Atlantic, and its exchange; that there was no hope of our soon having
nine states present in fact, that this was the ultimate point of time
to which we could venture to wait; that if the ratification was not
in Paris by the time stipulated, the treaty would become void; that if
ratified by seven states, it would go under our seal, without its being
known to Great Britain that only seven had concurred; that it was a
question of which they had no right to take cognizance, and we were only
answerable for it to our constituents; that it was like the ratification
which Great Britain had received from the Dutch, by the negotiations of
Sir William Temple.

On the contrary, it was argued by Monroe, Gerry, Howel, Ellery, and
myself, that by the modern usage of Europe, the ratification was
considered as the act which gave validity to a treaty, until which, it
was not obligatory.* That the commission to the ministers, reserved the
ratification to Congress; that the treaty itself stipulated, that it
should be ratified; that it became a second question, who were competent
to the ratification? That the Confederation expressly required nine
states to enter into any treaty; that, by this, that instrument must
have intended, that the assent of nine states should be necessary, as
well to the completion as to the commencement of the treaty, its object
having been to guard the rights of the Union in all those important
cases, where nine states are called for; that by the contrary
construction, seven states, containing less than one third of our whole
citizens, might rivet on us a treaty, commenced indeed under commission
and instructions from nine states, but formed by the minister in express
contradiction to such instructions, and in direct sacrifice of the
interests of so great a majority; that the definitive treaty was
admitted not to be a verbal copy of the provisional one, and whether the
departures from it were of substance, or not, was a question on which
nine states alone were competent to decide; that the circumstances
of the ratification of the provisional articles by nine states, the
instructions to our ministers to form a definitive one by them, and
their actual agreement in substance, do not render us competent to
ratify in the present instance; if these circumstances are in themselves
a ratification, nothing further is requisite than to give attested
copies of them, in exchange for the British ratification; if they are
not, we remain where we were, without a ratification by nine states,
and incompetent ourselves to ratify; that it was but four days since the
seven states, now present, unanimously concurred in a resolution to be
forwarded to the Governors of the absent states, in which they stated,
as a cause for urging on their delegates, that nine states were
necessary to ratify the treaty; that in the case of the Dutch
ratification, Great Britain had courted it, and therefore was glad to
accept it as it was; that they knew our Constitution, and would object
to a ratification by seven; that, if that circumstance was kept back,
it would be known hereafter, and would give them ground to deny the
validity of a ratification, into which they should have been surprised
and cheated, and it would be a dishonorable prostitution of our seal;
that there is a hope of nine states; that if the treaty would become
null, if not ratified in time, it would not be saved by an imperfect
ratification; but that, in fact, it would not be null, and would be
placed on better ground, going in unexceptionable form, though a few
days too late, and rested on the small importance of this circumstance,
and the physical impossibilities which had prevented a punctual
compliance in point of time; that this would be approved by all nations,
and by Great Britain herself, if not determined to renew the war, and if
so determined, she would never want excuses, were this out of the way.
Mr. Read gave notice, he should call for the yeas and nays; whereon
those in opposition, prepared a resolution, expressing pointedly the
reasons of their dissent from his motion. It appearing, however, that
his proposition could not be carried, it was thought better to make no
entry at all. Massachusetts alone would have been for it; Rhode Island,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia against it, Delaware, Maryland, and North
Carolina, would have been divided.