“
language of the Virginia laws, and reduce the matter to a simple style & form. he had copied the acts verbatim, only omitting
what was disapproved; and some family occurrence calling him indispensably home, he desired m
(
~
r)
Wythe & myself to make it what we thought it ought to be, and authorised us to report him as concurring in the work. we accordingly
divided the work, & reexecuted it entirely so as to assimilate it’s plan & execution to the other parts, as well as the shortness
of the time would admit, and we brought the whole body of British statutes, & laws of Virginia into 127. acts, most of them
short. this is the history of that work as to it’s execution . . . experience has convinced me that the change in the style
of the laws was for the better, & it has sensibly reformed the style of our laws from that time downwards, insomuch that they
have obtained in that respect the approbation of men of consideration on both sides of the Atlantick. whether the change in
the stile & form of the criminal law, as introduced by m
(
~
r)
Taylor, was for the better is not for me to judge. the digest of that act employed me longer than I believe all the rest
of the work; for it rendered it necessary for me to go with great care over Bracton, Britton the Saxon statutes, & the works
of authority on criminal law: & it gave me great satisfaction to find that in general I had only to reduce the law to it’s
antient Saxon condition, stripping it of all the innovations & rigorisms of subsequent times, to make it what it should be.
the substitution of the Penitentiary instead of labor on the high road, & of some other punishments truly objectionable, is
a just merit to be ascribed to m
(
~
r)
Taylor’s law. when our report was made, the idea of a Penitentiary had never been suggested: the happy experiment of Pennsylvania
we had not then the benefit of . . .
”
A more detailed account is given by Jefferson in his autobiography, the
Notes on the State of Virginia
and in others of his writings.
George Mason, 1725-1792, Revolutionary statesman and constitutionalist. Mason was the author of a draft of the Virginia Bill of Rights which was used by Jefferson in writing the Declaration of Independence.
[1864]
J. 74
Draughts of bills by a Comm
(
~e
)e of Revisors.
1792.
fol.
1815 Catalogue, page 75. no. 206, as above, with reading
Committee.
VIRGINIA.
Draughts of such Bills, as have been prepared by the Committee appointed under the Act, intituled, “An Act, to amend an Act,
intituled, An Act, concerning a new Edition of the laws of this Commonwealth, reforming certain rules of legal construction,
and providing for the due publication of the Laws and Resolutions of each session,” passed on the twenty-third day of December,
in the year one thousand seven hundred and ninety, on the subjects of those Laws which from their multiplicity require to
be reduced into single Acts. Transmitted to the Executive on the twenty-sixth of March, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-two,
in order to be printed. [-Vol. II.]
Richmond: Printed by
Augustine Davis, printer for the Public,
m,dcc,xcii
. [1792]
Law 19
Folio. 2 vol. in 1. Vol. I, 98 leaves: [ ]
4, B-Z, Aa-Zz, Aaa-Bbb
2; vol. II, 44 leaves: [ ]
2, B-Y
2. In the second volume the title reads:
. . . Transmitted to the Executive on the eighteenth of August . . .
Sabin 10058, 9.
[
sic
--
Ed.
]
Evans 24964.
Swem 7771, 7772.
Tree sheep. Not initialled by Jefferson. Paragraphs are crossed out and MS. notes and corrections added, not by Jefferson.
Vol. II has the signature of
Travers Daniel jr. With the Library of Congress 1815 bookplate.
[1865]
J. 75
Collection of laws of 1794.
1815 Catalogue, page 75. no. 207, as above, fol.
Law 17
Another copy of no. 1862.
Old sheep; initialled by Jefferson at sig. I and T and marginal reference to Hening’s
Statutes at Large
, added by him. With the Library of Congress 1815 bookplate.
[1866]
