The Jeffersonian cyclopedia; a comprehensive collection of the views of Thomas Jefferson classified and arranged in alphabetical order under nine thousand titles relating to government, politics, law, education, political economy, finance, science, art, literature, religious freedom, morals, etc.; |
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 | The Jeffersonian cyclopedia; |  |
5578. MURDER, Degrees of.—[continued].
In 1796, our Legislature
passed the law for amending the penal laws
of the Commonwealth. [Virginia.] * * * 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 degrees. [349]
—
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 47.
Ford ed., i, 65.
(1821)
The clause of Jefferson's bill read as follows:
“And where persons, meaning to commit a trespass
only, or larceny, or other unlawful deed, and doing
an act from which involuntary homicide hath ensued,
have heretofore been adjudged guilty of manslaughter,
or of murder, by transferring such their unlawful
intention to an act, much more penal than they
could have in probable contemplation; no such
case shall hereafter be deemed manslaughter, unless
manslaughter was intended, nor murder, unless
murder was intended.”—Editor.
| The Jeffersonian cyclopedia; | |