143
The Rivanna had never been used for navigation ; scarcely an empty canoe had ever passed down it. Soon after I came of age, I examined its obstructions, set on foot a subscription for removing them, got an Act of Assembly passed, and the thing effected, so as to be used completely and fully for carrying down all our produce.
The Declaration of Independence.
proposed the demolition of the Church establishment, and the freedom of religion. It could only be done by degrees; to wit, the Act of 1776, c. 2. exempted dissenters from contributions to the Church, and left the Church clergy to be supported by vo- luntary contributions of their own sect; was continued from year to year, and made perpetual 1779, c. 36. I prepared the act for religious freedom in 1777, as part of the revisal, which was not reported to the Assembly til 1779, and that particular law not passed till 1785, and then by the efforts of Mr. Madison.
The act putting an end to entails.
The act prohibiting the importation of slaves.
The act concerning citizens, and establishing the natural right of man to expatriate himself, at will.
The act changing the course of descents, and giving the inheri- tance to all the children, &c. equally, I drew as part of the revisal.
The act for apportioning crimes and punishments, part of the same work, I drew. When proposed tothe legislature, by Mr. Madison, in 1785, it failed by a single vote. G. K. Taylor after- wards, in 1796, proposed the same subject ; avoiding the adoption of any part of the diction of mine, the text of which had been studiously drawn in the technical terms of the law, so as to give no occasion for new questions by new expresions. When I drew mine, public labor was thought the best punishment to be substi- tuted for death. But, while I was in France, I heard of a society in England, who had successfully introduced solitary confinement, and saw the drawing of a prison at Lyons, in France, formed on the idea of solitary confinement. And, being applied to by the Governor of Virginia for the plan of a Capitol and Prison, I sent him the Lyons plan, accompanying it with a drawing on a smaller scale, better adapted to our use. ‘This was in June, 1786. Mr. Taylor very judiciously adopted this idea, (which had now been acted on in Philadelphia, probably from the English model) and substituted labor m confinement, to the public labor proposed by the Committee of revisal ; which themselves would have done, had they been to act on the subject again. ‘The public mind was ripe for this in 1796, when Mr. ‘Taylor proposed it, and ripened chiefly by the experiment in Philadelphia; whereas, in 1785, when it had been proposed to our Assembly, they were not quite ripe for it.
