Year: 1866

now being made to encourage enlgFatlon
into this State from Europe. While you
extend your hand to the European peasant,
you are driving your own people from their
native soil. Who will, own these lands II
the present occupants shall be forced to sell
them or haze them sold under legal pro-
cess? TIE few creditors who are not rnined
by the operation and foreign capitalists.
These will displace our present landholdeEs,
and the latter will become their tenants
and laborers, or wanderers abroad. Nor
will it be long before this result will be ac-
complished. History tells us as a striking
fact, that in twenty years after the con-


quest of England by William the Norman,


almost all the lands Of the Kingdom had


passed into the hands of strangers. That


result will follow the surrender to our con-


querors in much shorter time. In this


transition from lords of the soil to serfs


and tenants, our people will suffer all the


evils which have depicted, and all depart


ments of industry will languish and die.


Not only will our material interests be thus


affected, but all the means of moral and in


tellectual improvement. Our schools and


colleges, all our religious and charitable in


stitutions, will linger in their present con"


dition of prostration and exhaustion. Our


children will grow up in ignorance. The


State exhausted of resources will scarcely
be able to float upon the ebb-tide, drifting


her to destruction. Her wealth and power


all the elements which constitute the great


ness and prosperity ofa people, will be


wanting for years to come. The present


generation will have passed away before she


viii regain her former prosperity and power.


The condition Of the country then being


such, that some remedial legislation should


be had, we come now to consider the char
acter of the Legislation proposed by the


resolutions. The first resolution proposes


to amend the insolyent laws of this State.


The insolvent laws of this State provide
for the discharge of debtors petitioning for
their benefit only when they are under


arrest on what is termed mesne or final
process-the writ which brings the party
into court, or the execution against his
person. The resolution proposes to amend
these laws SO as to give the debtor the
right to petition for his discharge on his
own motion without suit brought or execu-
ton issued against him. A discharge under
these laws as they now stand, relieves the
debtor only from the debts of suing creditors
and of those who accept dividend under
his assignment. The resolution proposes
to amend these laws so as to discharge the


debtor from all debts whether in suit, or
not upon complying with the condition Of
complete surrender OF all his property
and effects. The object of these amend


ments is to give to debtors the benefit of a
bankrupt act, to relieve them of their pre-
sent embarrassments, and secure to them


the enjoyment Of their future acquisitions
of property. Does not the extraordinary
| condition in which this class of persons have
been placed, by no default of their own, but
by the acts of the Government, justify these
amendments of the law? Do not the
interests of the State and justice to these
persons require that they should be per-
lnitted, after giving up all that they possess


to their creditors, to resume their aVocations
in life, and build up new estates by their
energy and enterprize? No department of
| industry will revive and flourish so long as
the people are oppressed by theload of debt
which now weighs them down, and para
ives all their efforts to retrieve their losses.
No sentiment of moral obligation will be
found sufficiently strong to convince the
people, in their present condition, that it is
| their duty to devote the remainder OF their
| lives to the payment of their debts. How
ever, much we may commend such senti-
ment. it will be found that it is too feeble
| in the minds of the great mass Of the people
to accomplish any practical good. True


craftsmanship always takes things as they
are, not as they should be, and adapts its
policy to the attainment of the greatest


good upon that assumption. So long as the


people have no reasonable prospect of re-
! iieving themselves of the embarrassments
which envelop them, they will have scarcely
any motive to accumulate property, and
without this motive they will be useless men,
bers of society. AS to the expediency of
these changes of the law, cannot conceive
| how a doubt can be entertained. But it
NAV be asked, has the Legislature the
power to make these changes; can it pass a
| BANKRUPT law? The better opinion seems
to be that the Legislature has this power;
that it has concurrent jurisdiction with
Congress, and that the only qualification of
its right to exercise Il, IS thab congress
has not exercised it. In other words, that
the power delegated to Congress to pass a
bankrupt law is not exclusive, and if it
withholds it's hand, the State Legislatures
NAV exercise the power. In the opinion of
the court in the case of Alexander vs.. Glib
son, reported in lst Mott & McCord, this
question is discussed, and the doctrine laid
| down as I have stated it. And in the
separate opinion which Judge Cheves de-
livered in that case, althong b he differed
| Nth tia narrt ,,non the nnestion of DOVER