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.
US constitutional amendment that prohibits excessive bail, ...excessive fines (and) cruel and unusual punishment.... The actual text of the Amendment is: Eighth Amendment - Further Guarantees in Criminal Cases: Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted. The amendment has been the subject of many cases brought before the Supreme Court of the United States, perhaps none more important than the 1958 case Trop v Dulles, for which the formal citation is 356 US 86.