For Scalia, though, the more important question was what the words "cruel and unusual" meant to the Framers of the Bill of Rights in 1791 when the Eighth Amendment was adopted. "Even if one assumes that the Founders knew the precise meaning of that English antecedent..., a direct transplant of the English meaning to the soil of American constitutionalism would in any case have been impossible." Because federal common law incorporated no common-law crimes, the Framers could only have meant to check legislative power. They understood the word "unusual" to refer to things that were "not regularly or customarily employed." Furthermore, if the Framers had meant to outlaw 'disproportional' punishments, they would have used that word, as many contemporary state constitutions did. "There is little doubt that those who framed, proposed, and ratified the Bill of Rights were aware of such provisions disproportional punishments, yet chose not to replicate them." Finally, the scant direct evidence available from state ratifying conventions confirmed for Scalia the view that an "unusual punishment" was a particular mode of punishment that was infrequently imposed, not one that was excessively lengthy in comparison to other punishments imposed for similar crimes.