Boon's Lick times. [volume] (Fayette, Mo.) 1840-1848, 1841-08-14

vention, and beyond the reach of the most
cautious foresight to discover. The pru-
dent and the reckless have been over
whelmed in one common ruin: men of
ample fortunes have been brought to pow
erty, and those of moderate means to alb
solute want; and the families of all look
ing in vain to their natural protectors for
the necessares of life. They are thrown
out of employment, and, with the worse
than iron shackles which bind them, they
are incapable of earning a subsistence.
There are estimated to be in the u. States
100000 bankrupts, with an average of at
least three persons dependent on each
making 100000 of souls ground down to
the earth by the most hopeless poverty,
their energy, their ambition, their pros
poets, for the present, destroyed, their
hopes for the future blighted. And for
whose benefit is all this misery inflicted on
TWO MILLIONS of human beings? Is it for
the benefit of the country? Does the
country profit by this paralysis of the most
enterprising, intelligent, and active portion
of the community Is the country bene-
fitted by the prostration, nay, the almost
humiliation, of the productive labor of her
citizens, and by the consequent debasement
of morals, which follows the want of en-
ployment, and the destruction of every
motive to ambition? Or is it for the ben
eft of the creditor, that this ruinous and
debasng state of things must continue !
What does he expect to gain from it ? Is
in eternal bondage? Does it give him any
pleasure to behold the helpless and hope
less condition of his wife and children
Is there to his ear any music in the cries
for bread, which 90 up from lisping infancy
and lettering age to those who can give
them no relief! Does he derive any con-
ISOLATION from the prospect of ignorance
and crime which are the inevitable lot of
those who have not the means of education
and of moral culture Or is there any
qualification in contrasting his own proud
elevation with the miserable victim that
he has trampled under foot No, sir, no;
none of these things. | will not permit
myself to believe, that a creditor inhuman
shape can entertain such fendish feelings,
or be actuated by such base motives.
What, then, is the cause of his opposition
to a Bankrupt law, which shall restore
once more to light and life this lost and de-
spending portion of our citizens! 1t is
the reluctance to cancel an obligation which
is the seeming representative of property.
1t is the vague and underlined hope of reali-
zng something out of nothing. And in
stead of taking the debtors estate, and APP
plying it, as far as it will go, he holds him
in hopeless bondage till there is nothing
left to apply. He cannot realize, that his
interests are promoted by letting loose this
large portion of the activity, energy, and
enterprise of the country. He cannot per-
ceive that he is thereby enabling his
debtor to become again one Of his best
customers, and to make up in new profits,
under a prosperous state Of the country,
the loss he has sustained. He cannot see,
that by liberal and enlightened policy, he
may hereafter in some instances, receive
the amount of principal and interest due
him. Mr.. President. if the creditor cannot
see these things, it is high time that Congress
saw them for him, and corrected the OBJ
liquity of his vision. 1t is with some a
chronic disease. The preiudices on this
subject are of the most inveterate charac-
ter. They have been wearing away grad
ually but slowly from that period in Roman
history when the body Of the debtor was
divided amongst his creditors, down to our
own time. when he was merely put in
close confinement, with nothing to sub
sst on but the charity of friends, for
the laudable purpose Of enabling him, in
that hopeful condition, to earn enough to
pay the demand for which he was impris-
oned "Shut out from the common air,
and the common use of his own limbs" he
was made to drink the baeful cup of
grief and eat the bitter bread of misery"
| That relict of barbarsm in my own State,
as we'll as in most others, thank God, is
''expunged" from the statute-boCk, never to
disgrace it again. The same preiudiccs
were encountered in adopting the non-im-
prisonment act. in my own State. was
then in the Legislature. Our table groaned
with remonstrances. We finally succeeded
in abolishing Imprisonment in regard to
resident but not in regard to nonresident
citizens. A few years elapsed; public SEN
timent became so changed on that subj ect,
that the Imprisonment Of nonresident
debtors was abolished by unanimous vote
of both houses. Such would be the result.
after experience, of well regulated Bank
rupt law.
then ask, Mr. President, what more i'm
portant measure of relief have we before
us! A National Bank, it is believed, would
give US uniform currency, regulate the
exchanges, and aid in reviving the business
of the country. But this would be for the
! bnneit Of unembarrasSnd creditors and moi
for hopeless debtors. Give to one class a
uniform currency, and to the other uni
form Bankrupt Law, and whilst you're re-