Dallas herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1849-1873, 1866-12-22
Hay-B Buy your Goods Mt Jeffries.
From the Galveston News.

The Dallas Herald denounces in severe
terms, the Act of the late Legislature Gre
pulating the collection of debts" The edi-
tor thinks its nconsttutionality is beyond
all question. This law may be, and we
think, is highly impolitic, for all laws that
impair the legal remedy for the collection
of debts that existed when the debt was
contracted, ore very much in the nature of
expost facto laws repudiating the debt.
The difference is in degree, not in any es-
sential principle. When by II change in
the law for collecting debt, the power of
collecting it is so long postponed that the
creditor is willing to take half its face val
ue, the necessary inference is that half the
debt is repudiated. That is more or less
the effect of every law that impairs the
creditors remedy when he gave the credit,
and without which remedy the credit would
probably not have been given. The natu-
raj and unavoidable effect of passing laws,
from time to time, depriving creditors of
their legal remedies, is to destroy credit,
and we agree fully with the Herald as re-
CARDS the policy of such Legislation. And
though the lawyers insist that laws simply
affecting the remedy for collecting the
debt, without repudiating it altogether,
are not unconstitutional, yet, as we said
before the effect Of such remedial laws
postponing collection, is really reputation
pro tanto, destroying the value of the debt
to certain extent. We therefore think
the argument that makes a law constitu-
tional because, it leaves the creditor the
power of getting his pay at some future
day, is fallacious. Time is an essential
element of value One hundred dollars
paid to the creditor when due, may be
worth to him as much as q thousand, ten
years later, and yet we are told it is con-
stitutional to make him wait ten years
Our law makers almost always assume that
debtor is entitled to their sympathy, and
the practice of Legislating for their relief
has became so common that we believe it is
an inducement for many dishonest persons
to get in debt. If A gets possession Of BIS
property upon promise of payment at a
given time and B depends upon the pay
ment for the support of his family, will it
be said that A is entitled to relief because
he is debtor? And if A uses the proper
ty thus purchashed, for speculative pur-
poses, while B is suffering for the want of
his pay, (which is q very common case,
then the injustice of extending the time
Of payment becomes more apparent. We
know events may occur, like that of the
late war; which seem to make it hardship
for the creditor to insist upon payment,
and vet how often is it the case that the
debt would long since have been paid but
for the fact that the debtor was speculat-
ing, by the use of the money, and refused
TO pay il, solely for that reason, and now
the new law steps in between them and de-
priyes the creditor of his money still long
or, giving the debtor still longer time to
speculate by the use of it. The fact that
il continues to draw legal interest is
scarcely ever any consideration to the cred
itor, when TO him the money is probably
worth ten times as much, as in fact IL usu-
ally is to the debtor. We have long since
been of the opinion that it is most wretch
ed policy for any government to pass stay
laws, and that the relief that is given, Is
most frequently given to the party who de-
serves it least, while the more deserving
party is made to suffer.
The following is the conclusion Of late
message by Gov. Humphreys vetoing a stay
law Of the Kentucky Legislature:
"wbat constitutes the obligation Of
Contract And what is the true distinc.
ton between the obligation and the rene
DIV to enforce it has never been determined
with any accuracy. But il has often been
decided that any act which subjected the
property Of q DEBTOR TO stay law does i'm
pair the obligation Of the contract and that
such a statute can be enforced only as 10
contracts made subsequent TO its passage.
In the act under consideration q stay is
given 10 the debtor for the payment OF the