1To John Adams from Benjamin Rush, 21 February 1789 (Adams Papers)
Rites of Execution: Capital Punishment and the Transformation of American Culture, 1776–1865
2To 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...
3To John Jay from Benjamin Rush, 9 July 1796 (Jay Papers)
...(1758–1827), a fellow Quaker merchant and philanthropist residing in New York City. Working closely with state senators Philip Schuyler and Ambrose Spencer, Eddy helped to craft the bill passed in March 1796 that diminished the use of capital punishment and established Newgate Prison. He then served as the first agent, or warden, for the institution.
4To James Madison from Benjamin Rush, 30 January 1806 (Madison Papers)
...His treatment of yellow-fever victims in the Philadelphia epidemic of 1793 brought him much criticism. As a reformer and humanist, he engaged in many philanthropic works, condemned capital punishment, espoused prison reform and temperance, and supported advanced theories of education. A member of the American Philosophical Society and the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of...