The local work to which Jefferson attributed such importance was a revision of Virginia's laws. Of the measures proposed to this end he says: "I considered four, passed or reported, as forming a system by which every trace would be eradicated of ancient or future aristocracy, and a foundation laid for a government truly republican"--the repeal of the laws of entail; the abolition of primogeniture and the unequal division of inheritances (Jefferson was himself an eldest son); the guarantee of freedom of conscience and relief of the people from supporting, by taxation, an established church; and a system of general education. The first object was embodied in law in 1776, the second in 1785, the third[2] in 1786 (supplemented 1799, 1801). The last two were parts of a body of codified laws prepared (1776-1779) by Edmund Pendleton,[3] George Wythe, and Jefferson, and principally by Jefferson. Not so fortunate were Jefferson's ambitious schemes of education. District, grammar and classical schools, a free state library and a state college, were all included in his plan. He was the first American statesman to make education by the state a fundamental article of democratic faith. His bill for elementary education he regarded as the most important part of the code, but Virginia had no strong middle class, and the planters would not assume the burden of educating the poor. At this time Jefferson championed the natural right of expatriation, and gradual emancipation of the slaves. His earliest legislative effort, in the five-day session of 1769, had been marked by an effort to secure to masters freedom to manumit their slaves without removing them from the state. It was unsuccessful, and the more radical measure he now favoured was even more impossible of attainment; but a bill he introduced to prohibit the importation of slaves was passed in 1778--the only important change effected in the slave system of the state during the War of Independence. Finally he endeavoured, though unsuccessfully, to secure the introduction of juries into the courts of chancery, and--a generation and more before the fruition of the labours of Romilly and his co-workers in England--aided in securing a humanitarian revision of the penal code,[4] which, though lost by one vote in 1785, was sustained by public sentiment, and was adopted in 1796. Jefferson is of course not entitled to the sole credit for all these services: Wythe, George Mason and James Madison, in particular, were his devoted lieutenants, and--after his departure for France--the principals in the struggle; moreover, an approving public opinion must receive large credit. But Jefferson was throughout the chief inspirer and foremost worker.