Not just a wordsmith, at which he had few equals, the third president of the United States was a whiz at math, philosophy, history, and the languages (he was proficient in French, Latin and Greek). And that was just as a college student at the College of William and Mary.
The Eighth Amendment (Amendment VIII) of the United States Constitution prohibits the federal government from imposing excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel and unusual punishments. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that this amendment's Cruel and Unusual Punishment Clause also applies to the states.
Largely as a result of these objections, the Constitution was amended to prohibit cruel and unusual punishments. As these debates demonstrate, the Cruel and Unusual Punishments Clause clearly prohibits âbarbaricâ methods of punishment. If the federal government tried to bring back the rack, or thumbscrews, or gibbets as instruments of punishment, such efforts would pretty clearly violate the Eighth Amendment.