1987. DEATH PENALTY, Criminal Reform and.—[continued].
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 [of the Virginia
laws] 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.—
Autobiography. Washington ed. i, 45.
Ford ed., i, 62.
(1821)
