WATCH OUT! Thomas Jefferson Wants To Chop Off Your Body Parts

Thoman Jefferson pitched a very odd bill that proposed chopping off peens and noses.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
School of Humans.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
So far this season of American filth, we've really dallied
in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Booah.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
So let's get back to the beginning of frickin America.
In seventeen seventy nine, the American settlers were in the
middle of their little Revolutionary War.

Speaker 1 (00:28):
Have you guys heard of this?

Speaker 2 (00:30):
But during this time, our founding papas weren't just doing war.
They were also trying to figure out what they wanted
for their country and to really make America. The United
States of America sing to be different, to be a
nation of freedom, never mind slavery, its laws needed to
catch up to more enlightened principles. When English speaking whites

(00:55):
first colonized what would become the East Coast of the
United States in the seventeenth century, they copied laws from
mommy England, and some of those.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
Laws were pretty severe.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Get capital punishment for a wide variety of crimes, not
just murder, but also rape, witchcraft, polygamy, sodomy, and horse thievery.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Nay, not horse thievery.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
But during the Revolutionary War, lawmakers like Thomas Jefferson were like,
do we really need to put someone to death for
all of those crimes. Can we figure out a different
type of punishment? He was like, death seems pretty severe
for rape, which is one of my favorite activities. So
in Virginia, Thomas Jefferson proposed a bill where if you

(01:43):
did a bit of sodomy, if you did a little
bit of rape, well the state wouldn't put you to death. Instead,
it would chop some of your body parts off. Cue
the theme song, This is American filth and I'm Gabby Watts.

(02:06):
Every week I tell you a filthy story from American history.
This week's episode, watch out, Thomas Jefferson wants to chop
off your body parts. So what was going on with

(02:30):
Thomas Jefferson when he proposed this very odd bill featuring
chopped off body parts. Well it was seventeen seventy nine
and he was serving his second term as governor of Virginia,
and he was writing up many bills to help shape
Virginia as a state instead of a colony. One bill
he came up with was for universal education, giving each

(02:52):
child three years of government sponsored school, and crazily enough,
it was for boys and for girls. Was Thomas Jefferson
a big feminist? No, he was a slave owner. Remember
that you can't be a feminist if you're a slave owner.
That wouldn't be very intersectional, would it. But that education bill,

(03:16):
well it failed to pass, makes sense, you girls. At
this time he was also coming up with a Virginia
Statute for religious freedom, basically separation of church and state,
which would later be used as a model for the
US Constitution. One of Jefferson's main goals, and also the

(03:38):
goals of the Founding Daddies, was that they wanted to
update their laws to be more enlightened, you know, featuring
principles of reason, governments run by representatives, natural rights, and
of course liberty. Again, Thomas Jefferson was a horrible slave owner,
so ha haa haa haa hypocrisy. But one idea from

(04:02):
enlightenment was that punishment for a crime should be purported
to the crime. That's called the principle of lex talionis,
which is a fancy Latin way of saying an eye
for an eye, or quote the law of retaliation, whereby
a punishment resembles the offense committed in kind and degree.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
You guys, get it.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
So clearly, the laws they had as a colony didn't
really reflect this Lex Talionis principle. People were put to
death for a wide variety of crimes. Also, at the time,
capital punishment was a practical solution because back then they
didn't have many big prisons. There wasn't enough space to
imprison people so that they could have reform and rehabilitation.

(04:51):
It was either death or hard labor. That was basically
the options. But this wasn't enlightened. So Thomas Jefferson proposed
Bill sixty four to Virginia's General Assembly to recommend more
proportionate punishments for crimes. Well, really, some other Virginia legislators

(05:12):
came up with the bill, and then Thomas Jefferson.

Speaker 1 (05:14):
Was like, no, it's me, it's mine. I did it. Moh,
so let's see what he came up with.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
So in the bill, it keeps capital punishment for two crimes,
for murder and for treason. The bill reads, if a
man do levy war against the Commonwealth, or be adherent
to the enemies of the Commonwealth, the person so convicted
shall suffer death by hanging, and shall forfeit his lands
and goods to the Commonwealth. They said commonwealth so many times.

(05:47):
That's not good writing. And here's the fun thing about
murder and capital punishment. For a few murders, depending on
how you did the murder, that would determine how you
were put to death. Like, let's say you killed a
family member. The bill reads, if a murder his wife,
a parent, his child, or a child his parent, he

(06:09):
shall suffer death by hanging, and his body be delivered
to be dissected.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
That's right. If you kill a member of your family,
you get dissected.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
Obviously, they need to look in your body to see
if you ever had a heart.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
Why would you.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
Kill your mummy? But let's say you killed someone with poison.
Bill sixty four said, whoever committeth murder by poisoning shall
suffer death by poison.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
Isn't that fun? Do you guys think that makes sense?

Speaker 2 (06:41):
You know, like you get killed by the same method
that you killed somebody else. Like I feel like that
could make an executioner's job a lot more fun, right,
must be boring, Just like you know, unlocking the gallows,
people fall they hang. He's like, ooh, I get to
come up with a fundatle poison. I get to do
some science. But here's the thing. After the poisoning clause.

(07:04):
It says whoever shall commit in any other way shall
suffer death by hanging, so boring only poison gets special treatment.
They do put some special spice, you know, on some
other deaths, like if you die in a duel, if
you're the one.

Speaker 1 (07:20):
Who proposed the duel, you get hanged.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
And then they also just put your body on display
so everyone can be like, wow, look at that loser
who proposed a duel. Besides murder and treason, Bill sixty
four says, all the other crimes get hard labor. They're like, hey,
you don't have to die anymore if you do arson, counterfeiting, currency, robbery, burglary,

(07:44):
horse stealing.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Yeah, just go work outside. It's chill.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
By chill, I mean, it's still hard labor, it's not
chill labor. And some of them also had fun little
elements like if you did larceny, you were putting the
pillory for a half hour, meaning you were displayed in
a cage where the public could see you and laugh
at you, being like hah ah, you did larceny and
got caught, you dumb bitch. And then witchcraft, you guys,

(08:12):
remember the Salem witch trials.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
They used to hang.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Ladies all the time, and men, I know, blah blah
blah for you in cells. Yes, the men, they also
got captured and hanged. But if you were convicted of
witchcraft and Bill sixty four, you got punished by ducking
and whipping.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
At the discretion of a jury.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
Whipping. You guys know what that is. But if you
don't know what ducking is, that's where.

Speaker 1 (08:35):
They would like tie a lady to a chair.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
And then they would put the chair over the water
and just like dunk her again and again, which is
hate being dunked in water.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
But blah blah blah blah blah.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
I'm just trying to outline the bill again to build suspense,
legal suspense. Let's get to the parts where if you
were convicted of some crimes you got your.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Body parts chopped off.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
This first clause was similar to the poison you know,
where if you poison someone, you get poisoned. Here it
said if you injure someone, that same act gets done
to you. It said, whosoever, on purpose and of malice forethought,
shall maime another, or shall disfigure him by cutting out
or disabling the tongue, slitting or cutting off a nose, lip,

(09:24):
or ear, branding, or otherwise shall be maimed or disfigured
in like sort, or if that cannot be for want
of the same part, then as nearly as many be
in some other parts of at least equal value and
estimation in the opinion of the jury.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
God. They use so many words.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Basically, it's like, hey, if you cut off someone's nose,
we're gonna cut off your nose. If you slit someone's tongue,
We're gonna slit your tongue. If you brand them, we're
gonna brand you. Tit for tat quid pro quolex talionis
hand for a hand, eye for an eye, butt for
a butt, foot for a foot, toes for a toes.
Is this a new song? But this is the crazy

(10:05):
and this is the whole reason I'm talking about this
with this episode. Let me just read this next part.
It says, whoever shall be guilty of rape, polygamy, or
sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a
man by castration, if a woman by cutting through the
cartilage of her nose a whole of one half inch
diameter at the least.

Speaker 1 (10:29):
Well, that's specific. When I read this. I was like,
what the hell?

Speaker 2 (10:34):
This is very cuckoo bananas, also very random, Like I
kind of get like if you rape or do polygamy,
sodomy for I get castration because it's like you use
your dick.

Speaker 1 (10:44):
But what about this cartilage and the nose thing? Where
did T. Jefferson get that idea from? Well?

Speaker 2 (10:51):
Answer that after these very soothing advertisements. So Thomas Jefferson
wasn't completely off the cuff here with his proposal for
disfiguring people as punishment. Disfigurement had been used as a
punishment for centuries and laws across the globe, but it
was becoming very unfashionable with Enlightenment principles, you know, cruel

(11:16):
and unusual punishment and all that jazz. Also, several laws
against disfigurement already existed, but many holdovers from Mommy England
were still around. In colonial America. One common disfigurement for
legal punishment was branding. If you committed petty theft beat

(11:38):
up your neighbor, you might get a brand on your hand,
but if you were extra naughty, you could get branded
on your face. Not only does that hurt aUI Awi,
it also makes you an easy target for societal shame.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
People will see your face.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Your face is usually just out there, and they'll be like, look,
this bitch is branded. They must be bad. I'm not
going to employ them. One example of branding was in
seventeen sixty six when a woman named Sarah Plant got
branded for the terrible crime of marrying five husbands. Five husbands,

(12:19):
that's a lot of men making I hate my wife jokes. Also,
now that I live in Brooklyn, New York, I think
it's against the law not to have five husbands. But
faced branding, the founding father's thought was super unenlightened. It
did not allow for rehabilitation and reform. Instead, you were
marked as a criminal forever. That being said, that didn't

(12:43):
mean the US of A was going to stop branding
people on their body or face. Branding was common in
early America and even into the nineteenth century, specifically during
the Civil War when soldiers deserted. In eighteen sixty four,
a surgeon in the Union Army, doctor Minor, wrote a
vivid account of having to brand an Irish soldier who

(13:05):
had deserve. Historian Simon Winchester wrote this, adapted from the
doctor's journals. The soldier cried, He screamed, He struggled, but
the soldiers held him down, and doctor Minor took the
hot iron from a basket of glowing coals that had
been hastily borrowed from the brigade ferrier.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
He hesitated for.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
A moment, a hesitation that betrayed his own reluctance. For
was this, he wondered, briefly, truly permitted under the terms
of his hippocratic oath. The officers grunted for him to continue,
and he pressed the glowing metal on the irishman's cheek.
The flesh sizzled, the blood bubbled and steamed. The prisoner

(13:49):
screamed and screamed, and then it was over. The wretch
was led away, holding to his injured cheek the alcohol
soaked rag that Miner had given him. Perhaps the wound
would become infected, would fill with the laudable puss. Perhaps
it would fester and crust with sores.

Speaker 1 (14:08):
Perhaps it would blister and burst and bleed for weeks.
He didn't know.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
All he was sure of was the brand would be
with him for the rest of his life. A little melodramatic,
but I mean that would really hurt. Having your cheek sizzle.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
I don't like that.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
So even though the founding papas were like, ugh, it's
so unenlightened brand people, it still was happening. And in
pre revolutionary America they were doing all sorts of corporal punishments,
Like in sixteen twenty four in colonial Virginia, a ship
captain was executed because he freakin forcibly sodomized one of
the ship's crew members, a young boy.

Speaker 1 (14:53):
Yikes.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
But then some other men on the ship are like, hey,
that seems unfair that you're executing him for rape. And
then those men were punished by getting their ears chopped off.
Ear cropping like this went on well throughout the eighteenth century.
States only started removing it as a legal punishment in
seventeen eighty six. So let's get to the punishment of

(15:17):
castration and drilling a hole in the cartilage of women's noses.
As I said, castration makes sense because hey, you raped,
you sodomized, you were a sexual deviant, you get your
pains chopped off, Okay, by the cutting the cartilage of
a woman's nose, Like, where did that come from?

Speaker 1 (15:37):
It's so specific and weird.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
In the actual Bill Thomas Jefferson didn't cite why he
wanted this punishment, but across the world and across time,
there have been a lot of cases where sexual transgressors
got nasal injuries as punishment.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
In a penal code.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
In ancient Egypt, they were like, hey, if you're an adulteress,
a woman adulterer, you get your nose cut off. In
the Byzantines, if a woman was an adulterer, her husband
was the one who.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Had to cut her nose off.

Speaker 2 (16:13):
But then the dew that she cheated with only got
one hundred strikes of a cane. Seems kind of unfair.
You can get over cane whippings, but your nose is
gone forever. And Europe in the twelfth century, kings often
use nasal mutilation for conspiracy, prostitution, and adultery. Later in

(16:33):
the sixteenth century, sixty is five of Rome threatened highway
robbers with nasal injuries, and that actually decreased crime, because
having a fucked up face for the rest of your
life is a.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
Big deterrent to thieving.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
The nose and adultery thing was even happening in pre
colonial America. Some Native American tribes did this, so I
guess there's just something about the human spirit where we're like, hey,
you adultered, er go, I'm gonna cut your nose off.
That's just like something inherent to the human spirit. But

(17:10):
I was thinking about this, Okay, this is a real
side note, this is evil Gabby coming out. But I
was like, is it because women were giving blowjobs and
if you cut the nose out, that was like you
couldn't breathe when you gave a blow I don't know,
I honestly I don't. I couldn't find someone saying like,
what is the connection between nose and adultery? I mean,

(17:30):
really cutting off the nose it's a big deal because
that's like a huge part of your face, I know,
historically rigorous work. And so if an adultry was considered
really bad, so they're like, hey, you get this horrible.

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Punishment for it.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
And then Jefferson, he didn't even do the whole like
cutting the whole nose off. He was just like, we're
just gonna cut inside of it. So I guess when
you breathe, it hurts. And I guess that's also more
compassionate too, because it doesn't mean that you're like, you know,
marred for like your face isn't fucked up for life,
you know, it's just like you're very uncomfortable. Most of
the time. I was also reading a book about all

(18:07):
the different bears. Not gay men, but bears. You guys know, bears.
There's eight species of bears worldwide, and this is kind
of what they would do to make bears dance.

Speaker 1 (18:16):
They would capture little baby cubs.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
And then they would like bore a hole in their
nose and then like put a rope or a chain
there and then do all these brutal beatings and then
make them dance.

Speaker 1 (18:27):
Are women bears? Who knows?

Speaker 2 (18:31):
Jefferson revised Bill sixty four several times, and he got
rid of several clauses that featured proportionate maiming. He was like, wow,
these are inhumane and stupid, So I'm gonna just make
people do hard labor instead, or we could just take
away their property and assets. But still, the final draft
of Bill sixty four kept the claws of castration and

(18:55):
nose cutting. By the time the bill started making its
rounds of Virginia, Jefferson was an envoy for the soon
to be independent United States of America in France, and
when he was in France.

Speaker 1 (19:08):
He was showing off all of his bills. People liked them.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
They're like, ooh, universal education, separation of church and state,
that's awesome. But then they saw Bill sixty four and
they were just like, what the hell is this sacrebleu.
It wasn't popular. The French people, to Thomas Jefferson, were like,
this stuff is not in fashion, Like you need to
take this out. Thomas Jefferson wrote to James Madison at

(19:33):
the time, and the criminal law, the principle of retaliation
is much criticized here, particularly in the case of rape.
They think the punishment indecent and unjustifiable.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (19:44):
He just got roasted by French people, and Jefferson was like, yeah,
we need to alter this bill again. He said, I
should be for altering it, but for a different reason.
That is, on account of the temptation women would be
under to make it the instrument of vengeance against an
inconstant lover and of disappointment to arrival.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (20:06):
He wanted to alter it because he thought women would
abuse the bill and try to get as many men.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Castrated as possible, because.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
You know, women are so sus We're always trying to
chop off men's penises. When the Virginia Committee finally voted
on the bill, it lost, but the reason wasn't the
nasal mutilation or castration. Mason told Jefferson that the bill

(20:36):
lost by one vote, and it wasn't because the bill
was trying to reduce punishments for sodomy and rape and witchcraft.
No people were likely on board for those. Instead, it
didn't pass because of the reduction of punishment for horse thievery.
Madison wrote to Jefferson, quote a rejection of the bill

(20:57):
on crimes and punishment was lost by a single vote.
The rage against horse stealers had a great influence on
the fate of the bill.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Well, that's right.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
People didn't want to pass it because they thought that
people who stole horses should be killed. But that makes sense,
you know, back then, horses were super important for society,
from transportation to construction. Virginia had even specifically passed a
bill in seventeen forty eight that made stealing a horse

(21:29):
capital punishment, and it was applied to someone who stole
a horse and also to people who bought a horse
that they knew was stolen. So, unfortunately, for the time being,
all those crimes horse thieving, rape, sodomy, witchcraft, all of that,
they all remained capital offenses in Virginia. Madison roach to Jefferson,

(21:53):
our old bloody code is by this event fully restored. Now,
most of these crimes were eventually removed from capital punishment
over the next few decades, all of them except for rape,
which people were executed for until nineteen sixty one. That
also had to do with a lot of racism. As

(22:16):
for proportionate maiming, lex talionis eye for an eye that
never passed, and it lost a lot of sort of
viability with the passage of the Eighth Amendment, you know,
the prohibition of cruel and unusual punishments. Though of course
that stuff was still used throughout our history, you know,

(22:37):
from slavery to as I was talking about in the
Civil War, to torturing people like one Tom Obey. You know,
we still be doing that stuff. And Thomas Jefferson, he
didn't seem proud of himself that he ever proposed this.
In fact, in his autobiography he was later like, I

(22:57):
don't even remember why I did that.

Speaker 1 (22:59):
He said.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
The lex talionis how this last revolting principle came to be.
I do not.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
See.

Speaker 2 (23:08):
He doesn't even remember why he ever recommended that. He's
like Lex talionis eye for an eye. That's so preposterous.
Why would I have ever said that. I was just
being silly. I guess every episode of American Filth we
learn a lesson, and I think the lesson here is
an eye for an eye lex talionis that shit is

(23:29):
stupid and inhumane. So if someone chops your leg off,
don't chop their leg off. Just get them arrested so
they can do hard labor. Cue the credits. American Film
is a production of School of Humans and iHeart Podcast.

Speaker 1 (23:49):
This episode was written hosted by me Gabby Watts.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
Our Beautiful, Beautiful theme song is by Jesse Niswanger. Our
executive producers our Virginia Prescott, Elsie Crowley, and Brandon Barr.
And you can follow along with the show on Instagram
at American Field Pod. I hope you guys have a
wonderful day, don't get your dick chopped off of and
I'll talk to you guys next time.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
Bye.

Speaker 1 (24:32):
School of Humans.