SECT. II. WE the General Assembly of Virginia do enact that no
man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship,
place, or ministry whatsoever, nor shall be enforced, restrained,
molested, or burthened in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise
suffer, on account of his religious opinions or belief; but that all
men shall be free to profess, and by argument to maintain, their
opinions in matters of religion, and that the same shall in no wise
diminish, enlarge, or affect their civil capacities.
SECT. III. AND though we well know that this Assembly, elected
by the people for the ordinary purposes of legislation only, have no
power to restrain the acts of succeeding Assemblies, constituted with
powers equal to our own, and that therefore to declare this act
irrevocable would be of no effect in law; yet we are free to declare,
and do declare, that the rights hereby asserted are of the natural
rights of mankind, and that if any act shall be hereafter passed to
repeal the present or to narrow its operation, such act will be an
infringement of natural right.
_A Bill for Proportioning Crimes and Punishments_
SECTION I. Whereas it frequently happens that wicked and
dissolute men, resigning themselves to the dominion of inordinate
passions, commit violations on the lives, liberties, and property of
others, and the secure enjoyment of these having principally induced
men to enter into society, government would be defective in its
principal purpose, were it not to restrain such criminal acts by
inflicting due punishments on those who perpetrate them; but it
appears at the same time equally deducible from the purposes of
society, that a member thereof, committing an inferior injury, does
not wholly forfeit the protection of his fellow citizens, but after
suffering a punishment in proportion to his offence, is entitled to
their protection from all greater pain, so that it becomes a duty in
the Legislature to arrange in a proper scale the crimes which it may
be necessary for them to repress, and to adjust thereto a
corresponding gradation of punishments.
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