The Virginia Gazette

Observations on the absurd severity of our laws in the case of THEFT.

[From Dr. Delaney's discourses, just published.]

I cannot help observing, with concern, that the laws of our land, in the case of theft, are the most unrighteous and unequitable that can be imagined.

Here, the stealing of a cow, or a sheep, is death by the law! Now, what can be more unrighteous, or absurd, than that the life of a man should be estimated by that of a cow or a sheep? And, besides this, it is putting the highest and the lowest guilt upon a monstrous foot of equality: A man must go to the gallows for stealing a sheep, and he can only go thither for murder, and with this advantage that he hath sometimes a better chance of escaping in the latter case. Is not this reviving all the cruelty and iniquity of Draco's laws, where death was the punishment of the lowest crimes as well as of the highest? And, after all, when the thief is executed, what reparation is made to the sufferer? None at all; if the felon had any property, it is forfeited to the Crown, and the poor man that was defrauded must be at the expense and trouble of prosecution.

And so the injury, instead of being repaired, is aggravated; and if he should enter into any measures to have his damages repaired out of the felon's substance, though perhaps his whole being and livelihood in the world depended upon it, this is called compounding of felony, and is interpreted into one of the most heinous and punishable offences he can be guilty of in society!

Whereas, if the offender were either sold into another country (where he was bound to labour, and his price, or a proper part of it, paid to the person injured by him) or were confined to labour at home, in such manner as that the profits of his labour might be applied to repay the damages he did, the injury might then be repaired; and a vagrant, that stole from sloth and idleness, being forced to hard labour for a season, would naturally acquire a habit of honest industry; and so, instead of being cut off from the commonwealth as a nuisance, might be preserved as a profitable member! Now all this folly and absurdity, and iniquity, arises entirely from the Legislature's neglecting to form and build itself upon the laws of God (Exod. xxii.) an omission which it is astonishing how any Christian society could be guilty of!