Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/159

THOMAS JEFFERSON 125 equal rights over ancient prejudices and restriction Jefferson always regarded as one of his most im portant contributions to the happiness of his coun try. Some of his utterances on this subject have passed into familiar proverbs: "Government has nothing to do with opinion," "Compulsion makes hypocrites, not converts," "It is error alone which needs the support of government; truth can stand by itself." It was he who drew the bill for establishing courts of law in the state, and for prescribing their powers and methods. It was he also who caused the removal of the capital to Richmond. He car ried the bill extirpating the principle of primogeni ture. It was the committee of which he was chair man that abolished the cruel penalties of the ancient code, and he made a most earnest attempt to estab lish a system of public education in the state. Dur ing two years he and his colleagues, Hamilton, Wythe, Mason and Francis Lightfoot Lee, toiled at the reconstruction of Virginia law, during which they accomplished all that was then possible, be sides proposing many measures that were passed at a later day. He could write to Dr. Franklin in 1777 that the people of Virginia had "laid aside the monarchical and taken up the republican govern ment with as much ease as would have attended their throwing off an old and putting on a new suit of clothes." It was Jefferson and his friends