1John Quincy Adams to Abigail Adams, 14 April 1801 (Adams Papers)
Spurred by Quaker reformers, the Pennsylvania legislature passed criminal justice acts in 1786 and 1794 that reduced penalties for many crimes and limited capital punishment to first-degree murder. To address a resulting increase in the prison population, the state instituted municipal work programs and improved conditions at Philadelphia’s
2Abigail Adams to John Adams, 31 March 1797 (Adams Papers)
at Milton they keep a Nightly Watch. it is really a Distressing calamity, but we shall be infested with more vagabonds, if the states go on to abolish capital punishmentsCapital punishment was an increasingly contested issue in the 1790s. Between 1794 and 1798 five states restricted the use of the death penalty to cases of murder or murder and treason. Virginia and New Jersey joined New York...
3Abigail Adams to John Adams, 25 March 1797 (Adams Papers)
. While used satirically in both cases, the line is a reference to the 1794 Pennsylvania law restricting the use of capital punishment to cases of first degree murder (Albert Post, “Early Efforts to Abolish Capital Punishment in Pennsylvania,”
4To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 24 February 1790 (Adams Papers)
Rush’s political views, especially his public protest of capital punishment, attracted sharp criticism in the press. Writing as Philochoras, the Presbyterian minister Robert Annan (1742–1819), who presided over Philadelphia’s Old Scots Church, lambasted Rush throughout the fall of 1788. Another squib claimed that the...
5To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 21 February 1789 (Adams Papers)
Rites of Execution: Capital Punishment and the Transformation of American Culture, 1776–1865
6Charles Adams to John Adams, 7 February 1796 (Adams Papers)
...Criminal Law of This State and for Erecting State Prisons.” Debate over the bill continued until 19 Feb., when it passed the senate. The assembly concurred, after various adjustments, on 25 March. The act allowed for capital punishment in the case of murder and treason but, after debate, excluded burglary, arson, counterfeiting, and a variety of other crimes (
7From Thomas Jefferson to Daniel Carroll Brent, 10 October 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
...intention to kill his wife,” the jurist noted, there was also “no evidence of any circumstance which could justify his striking her at all.” Cranch, who thought juries often demonstrated a “great tenderness” in cases involving capital punishment, was surprised that the jury deliberated only a
8Abigail Adams to Mary Smith Cranch, 21 March 1790 (Adams Papers)
...disposition to mischief, malice, and revenge” may descend in a family: “A young woman was lately convicted at Paris of a trifling theft, barely within the law, which decreed a capital punishment. There were circumstances, too, which greatly alleviated her fault; some things in her behaviour that seemed innocent and modest: every spectator, as well as the judges, was affected at the scene,...
9To Alexander Hamilton from Josias Carvel Hall, 11 September 1799 (Hamilton Papers)
a few examples of Capital punishment perhaps." In the margin of the first page there is an "X" mark beside the line in the first paragraph beginning "to use uncommon Exertion...."
10To Alexander Hamilton from Josias Carvel Hall, 4 October 1799 (Hamilton Papers)
...heretofore spoken to you of the frequency of desertion, and of the necessity of repressing it by severe punishment. It is not my wish to influence opinion in Any particular case, but I believe that a few examples of capital punishment, perhaps one in each regiment, will be found indispensable.”