158 THOMAS JEFFERSON 



many of the old families, but popular feeling must 

 have been strongly aroused against it, for Jefferson's 

 bill was passed within three weeks. All entailed 

 estates at once became estates in fee simple, and could 

 be bought and sold or attached for debt like other 

 property. It was a sweeping reform and won for 

 Jefferson the vindictive hatred of many of the aristo- 

 crats, some of whom were cruel enough to point to the 

 death of his only son as a divine judgment which he 

 had brought down upon himself by his impious disre- 

 gard of the sacred rights of family. But the reformer 

 did not stop here. He next assailed primogeniture, 

 and presently overthrew it. At the same time, as 

 chairman of a committee for revising the laws, he 

 showed, in one important respect, a wise conservatism. 

 Against the advice of his able colleague, Edmund 

 Pendleton, he insisted upon retaining the letter of the 

 old laws wherever possible, because the precise mean- 

 ing of every phrase had been determined by decisions 

 of the courts, and to introduce new terminology is 

 always to open a fresh source of litigation. With all 

 this caution he did very much toward simplifying the 

 code. Here again we see, not the a priori French 

 iconoclast, but the practical and liberal English squire. 

 Other reforms, proposed by Jefferson and ultimately 

 carried out, were the limitation of the death penalty to 

 the two crimes of murder and treason, and the aboli- 

 tion of imprisonment for debt. He tried to introduce 

 public schools like those of New England, and to 

 have a public library established in Richmond ; but 

 the state of society in Virginia was not sufficiently 

 advanced in this direction to support him. He was 

 an earnest advocate of the abolition of slavery, but he 



