CHAPTER V.

PROPOSITION TO CODIFY THE LAWS OF VIRGINIA—A COMMITTEE APPOINTED For The PURPOSE—Mr. JeffersON'S PORTION OF THE TASK--CHANGES IN THE LAW OF DESCENTS-CHANGES IN THE CRIMINAL LAW-MEETING OF THE COMMITTEE-THEIR REPORT TO THE LEGISLATURE-LEADING REFORMS INTRODUCED BY MR. JEFFERSON INTO THE CODE-Religious FREEDOM ABOLITION OF SLAVERY-GENERAL SYSTEM OF EDUCATIONTHE CAPTIVE ARMY OF BURGOYNE QUARTERED AT CHARLOTTESVILLEPOPULAR EXCITEMENT-USEFUL AND BENEVOLENT ACTIVITY OF JEFFER SON IN REFERENCE TO THE CAPTIVES.

MR. JEFFERSON deserves to occupy the first place among the eminent men who have labored to repub licanize the institutions of America, both those of the Federal government and those of the States. Having succeeded in introducing those important reforms into Virginia which have been described in the foregoing chapter, he proceeded on the 24th of October, 1776, to introduce a bill providing for the appointment of a committee of five persons, who should prepare a new code of laws for the government of the State, by revising, altering, amending, and repealing what already existed, or by adding new enactments thereto. This measure was in substance providing for the erection of an entirely new system of laws in the State, and the total destruction

of the civil, political, and religious institutions of the past.

The committee appointed by the joint ballot of both houses of the legislature to perform this important task, were Mr. Jefferson as chairman, Edmund Pendleton, George Wythe, George Mason, and Thomas Ludwell Lee. So important were the duties entrusted to this committee supposed to be, that the legislature excused Mr. Wythe from his attendance in Congress, in order to enable him to perform the more responsible labors which devolved upon him as a member of this committee. committee appointed their first meeting at Fredericksburg on the ensuing 13th of January, for the purpose of making a distribution of the respective portions of their onerous work.

The

When the committee met, the arrangement which was adopted threw the most difficult and laborious portion of the work on the shoulders of Mr. Jeffer son. To him was committed the codification of the Common Law and of the British statutes down to the period of James I., when a separate legislature was first introduced into Virginia. The same statutes from the reign of James I. to the then existing period were committed to Mr. Wythe. The statutes of Virginia already in existence were consigned to Mr. Pendleton. The two remaining members of

the committee resigned without taking any share in the work, on the ground that they were not lawyers, and therefore not competent to the duties which would have devolved upon them. No substitutes were ever appointed in their place; and the whole of this immense labor was performed, in about two years, by the three remaining members of the committee.

The department of criminal law and the law of descents both fell within the range of Mr. Jefferson's task; and he embraced the opportunity thus afforded to impress upon both, the peculiar sentiments which he entertained on those subjects. In speaking of his labors in a letter to Mr. Wythe, in November, 1778, he said: "In style I have aimed at accuracy, brevity and simplicity, preserving however the very words of the established law, whether their meaning had been sanctioned by judicial decisions or rendered technical by usage. The same matter, if couched in modern statutory language, with all its tautologies, redundancies, and circumlocutions, would have spread itself over many pages, and been unintelligible to those whom it concerns." When re-enacting English statutes he took care not to change their ancient diction, lest he should give rise to new disputes by introducing new phraseology;

at the same time avoiding all useless amplification of language.

In regard to the criminal law, Mr. Jefferson adopted the fundamental rule to recommend penalties not repugnant to benevolence, to abolish the barbarous remains of ancient usages and punishments, and to inflict death only for the crimes of murder and treason. At that period the penal code of England affixed the penalty of death to two hundred different offenses. The humanity therefore which Mr. Jefferson recommended was at that time the more remarkable, as it was so far in advance of the age in which he lived.

The changes which he introduced into the law of descents were radical and extreme. He proposed to abolish the law of primogeniture, and to make real estate heritable in equal partition by the next of kin, as personal property already was by the statute of distribution. This project, which harmonized with the acts of the legislature already adopted on the subject, was violently opposed by Mr. Pendleton, who was also one of the committee; but Mr. Jefferson persisted in his purpose, and introduced this reform fully and prominently into the new code.

After the continued labors of two years the committee assembled in February, 1779, at Williams burg, to review, approve, and consolidate their

respective labors into one general and complete report. Day after day the several parts were read, examined, criticised, altered, amended and confirmed according to the decision of the majority of the committee. They had embodied in their labors all the Common Law, all the British statutes, and all the existing laws of Virginia; and had condensed this vast mass of jurisprudence into a single printed folio volume of ninety pages only, comprising one hundred and twenty-six bills.

On the 18th of June, 1779, the committee of revision reported the results of their labors to the general assembly. These were not adopted in a mass, but single portions were taken up from time to time, discussed and approved. It was not till 1785, after the conclusion of the Revolutionary war, that the whole code had received the sanction of law. The peculiar and most remarkable principles. which Mr. Jefferson elaborated, and incorporated into this code, were important in the highest degree, and indicate the great originality and boldness of his views. In addition to the repeal of the law of entails which he introduced into the code, and the abrogation of the law of primogeniture, together with the equal division of inheritances among children, he asserted the right of expatriation, or a republican definition of the terms on which alieus