OF LANCASTER COUNTY. 97 



soon taught him the wisdom of this measure. His government secured 

 the blessings of property and personal freedom alike to Christian and to 

 infidel; placed all persons on an equality before the laws, and admitted 

 Christians of every denomination to a full participation of political rights. 

 The experience of a hundred and fifty years, during which polit- 

 ical science has been widely extended, has added nothing essential to 

 human happiness which his system had not provided ; unless it be found 

 in those constitutions which make no discrimination in the religious faith 

 of the citizens. 



But the excellence of Penn's system is not confined to the provisions 

 of his charters. His laws were dictated by wisdom and humanity. The 

 unequal and dangerous disposition of wealth, arising from the feudal 

 principles of primogeniture, was abolished ; the equal claims of children 

 to the property of their common parent were acknowledged, and by this 

 return to common sense and natural right the dangers of accumulated 

 wealth were avoided. But the philosophical mind of the Pennsylvania 

 lawgiver is, perhaps, most discernible in his criminal code. A scale 

 graduating the punishment to the ofience, seemed in Europe to be unde- 

 sired by the legislator. Death impended alike over the purloiner of a 

 few grains of metal, and the murderer who robbed a family of its support 

 and the country of a citizen; over the infraction of a revenue law, and 

 the attempt to subvert the State. Death was ever ready to ofter himself 

 to the indolence of the law-giver, who fovmd it less laborious to hang 

 than to reclaim the criminal; to apply a common punishment, than to 

 investigate its propriety. Eeason revolts at this indiscriminate punish- 

 ment, and the humanity of the Marquis Beccaria, Montesquieu, and others, 

 have contributed to convince the world that its welfare is best promoted 

 by a due apportionment of the punishment to the crime, and its certain 

 application to the offender. Before these benevolent theorists gave their 

 labors to the public — before they were born — Penn had practically ex- 

 hibited the beneficial results of the principles which they have advocated. 

 He established a new code, in which the punishment of death was affixed 

 to murder only; injuries to individuals were punished by compelling the 

 criminal to make an adequate compensation to the party grieved, or by 

 imprisonment at hard labor; in all cases varying the punishment with 

 the enormity of the offence. In the classification of crimes, there are, 

 perhaps, some errors inseparable from enthusiasm; but humanity and 

 wisdom are eminently conspicuous in the legislator. The boldness and 

 originality of his genius will be more thoroughly understood by a glance 

 at the policy of the age and country in which he lived. When he com- 

 posed his plan of government, the despotic principles of the Stuarts were 

 prevailing over the nation, liberty of conscience was proscribed by the 

 laws, and almost every crime was punishable by death. In opposition to 

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