Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1853-1862, 1853-12-03
TENNESSEE LEGISLATURE.
sENATE-Arrraxoox SESSION..


in the consideration of bills ON their second reading;
which will be more fully reported when they come
up on their third reading
Mr. BELL offered the following resolutions; which
were laid over under the rule:
Resolved, BY the General Assembly of the State
of Tennessee, that for the following facts think
it our duty to repeal an act passed February 2lst
1852, entitled an act to protect the Homestead:
i. LIST. This act discriminates infavor OF the land
holder, to the injury of him who owns no land 1t
allows q man to hold exempt from execution five
hundred dollars worth of land, in addition to about
five hundred dollars worth of personal property,
which was exempt from execution before this act
was passed; thus allowing MAJ who owns land to
hold one thousand dollars worth of property, which
| is not to be liable for the payment of his honest
| debts while the man who ewns no land IS only
! allowed to hold half as much property free from
| execution. This we are bound to consider as dis
honest and partial legislation manifest in the act to
protect the Homestead and that therefore it can
never meet the sanction and heartfelt appreciation
of an intelligent and honest community.
ID This act can never add wealth to the coun-
try nor does it propose to furnish homes to those
who have no homes All the lands in Tennessee
are now owned and occupied by its citizens and
under such circumstances it is impossible for the
| Legislature to bestow home out of the lands OF
Tennessee upon man without first robbing aroth-
er man of his home. Then at best the thing pro-
one citizen for the empty and negative honor of
| giving property to another which the intended re-
cipient can never willingly accept for the accepta
ton would be violation of every principle of good
faith and propriety.
3d. This act to protect the Homestead only pro-
poses to protect it against the collection of honest
debts and the objects cannot be to protect against
any other kind of debts, for those that are dishon
est are not presumed to be colectable by the laws
of our country.
4th. This act to protect the Homestead must
destroy the credit of those whom it is proposed to
protect This done, and the recipient is ruined for
while the act ruins his credit it does not effect the
credit of the wealthy part OF the community; hence
the direct tendency OF this law In its operative eff
fects is to destroy the credit of the humble citizen
without affecting that of the rich. This gives the
rich increased or additional advantages over the
poor by which the richer parts of the community
viii be enabled to hold the poor man down, and
forever prevent him from rising IN the scale Of
competency and ease
interchange of property in the community, which
the future happiness of the country must depend;
for circulation and interchange of all kinds of prop
erty or wealth in the community is as essential to
the sustenance and perpetuity of our form of gov
ernment as is circulation in the elements Of the
universe essential to its existence.
9th No law can be OF benefit to community
which teaches that honesty shall notexist as of
the elements of government No law can result in
| good that proposes without consent or willing
ness of the parties to sunder honest obligations or
contracts, or prevent the paymento of the same.
18th. The act to protect the Homestead will pre-
venta truly poor man from the power OF collecting
his dues off of those who able TO pay, and who
own land, and at the same time, destroying the
credit of our medium class of society, it will ena-
BILE the rich TO Cypress and ruin them forever; to
bind them down and trample upon them, and ulti-
mately, having destroyed the credit of the SOL
vent citizens, and rendering them, according to
our design of the law, paupers against their de
sres they will have to give liens or mortgages upon
their lands thus exempt in order to obtain credit
and when such lands are thus exposed TO sale to
nav said mortgage for an amount under their val
ue on credit of twelve or eighteen months as the
case NAV be; then as the credit of tie medium citi
izen is destroyed he cannot become purchaser for
want Of the required security, which must depend
upon his soyency and the wealthy man bids but
small amount and the land must be knocked off TO
him. for he only can give the required security and
thus the rich will soon be, by the effects of their
law. able to own all the lands in the State, and
force the poorer to become their tenants servants
Hence from the operations of this law, monopo-
lies and aristocracies similar to the old world soon
gain the ascendency, and unprecedented tyranny
and oppression of our poorer and more unfortunate
fellow men, will prevail
Resolved further That we, seeing the slow and
steady but direct tendency and ultimate effects of
this act are compelled to consider it as pervertion
of our dearest interests social and free people,
and while it was titled Homestead to render it
popular, its only effect must be to RUM and we
therefore consider it hypocritcal the part of
the Legislature to sanction it for its name,
: it would be to title Demon, God and worship it
because we assumed the authority to misHame. Its
name and effects are as inapplcabe is the smile
of the assassin to the cruel stab which he intends
follow or as is the kiss of the seducer to the ruin
and dismay that he intends to effect by it.
Resolved further, That in our opinion the object
of all law should be justice, and that no law but
that which has this high, moral benevolent and re-
ligious object in view, can stand the test Of
time or pass the ordeal of truth and honesty. The
apothegem "honestyis the best police" is true in all
things-political, civil, and religious
Resolped, That we consider the objects and eff
fects Of this Homestead act, and that agitsted by
the general Government as directly opposite. One
is intended for wise and good, the other for bad
and evil object. One proposes to give man
home who has none; the other, to protect proper
ty in the hands of men against the payment their
honest debts, for Homesteads, which none of the
suffering poor can own One is designed to add to
the creative power of the country by setting and
cultivating lands not now guilty ated and useless
and thus make them valuable and add to the products
of the nation and to increase the Tue of its lands
the oheris designed to cheat honest creditors out
of their Just claims to add nothing to the creative
power of the country, nor to add TO the value of
lands but to practice with fondness the morbid and
errcn Gus policy that honest claims are unworthy
of payment and that pecuniary favor should meet
no pecuniary recompense.
ResolUed That in our opinion the community,
when hey see the effects Of this law will rise up
against it. as did the nation against the Bankrupt
law; passed by the Congress of the United States
in 1884, for the objects and effects Of the two
ures are so nearly the to scarcely admit of
a distinction, only that the Bankrupt law required
a man to make surrender Of his property to pay
his debts as far a. it would go; the Homestead re-
quires no such surrender, but allows to hold
his lands in despite of the debts that he may owe;
but both founded upon principles ofthe grossest
dishonesty and are alike, lost to every thing like
| political moral right.
| Resolved That in our opinion the people do not
! wish such measure as the act of the Dist of Feb
1852 TO remain upon the statutes of this active in
dustrious and gallant State for they must see that
it will ruin the poor and medium classes of society,
and aid the rich upon their ruins, produce dscord
and disunion; induce Incidence, teach dishonesty,
ruin morals, debase our citizens, enervate high
toned patriotism and ruin domestic quiet and ever
tending to destroy a wise equilibrium, on which
much of our happiness must ever depend and we
decidedly of the opinion that the great masses of