Year: 1873




other effects of these relief laws:


| l. As stated, millions Of the property Of
our people are sequestered and neutralized
utterly from obligations public or private.
2. Every man not worth over 8 600 is re-
duced to practical INSOLVENCY.


3. The poor man Is cut OFT from all credit.
No matter how honest, capable, or prompt
he may be, his assets are unavailable, and
neither he or any one can rely on what abil-
| ity has debtors may leave him. He is con-
demned for life to the third class. or to idle
ness and poverty.


! 4. They preclude all friendly assistance
which might be offered to those who are un-
fortunate and struggling to recover. but for
the pitfalls OF voluntary or involuntary
bankruptcy or homestead.


.. They put an end to all certainty in
business. No man, whatever be his skill,
care, or caution, can conduct his business
relying on his outstanding bills receivable,
or other debts; nor can he feel sure of his
own ability to raise money at any future
day. They prevent honest men from paying
their own debts.


6. These laws, especially the homestead,
establish a SYSTEM OF ESTAILs-and priUi-
legged classifying up five hundred millions
| of property by system more onerous than
the English entails destroyed by our earliest
acts of Assembly.


| Z. They demoralize our people, destroy
mutual faith, impair the sense of honor and
integrity, take away that great incentive TO
industry which exists in the knowledge that
man can obtain and keep home and sup
port for his family only by his own 2xertion
and prudence.


| s. They cause dead loss in money to the
poor man. Take a mechanic who can earn
S3 day let him state the account. Let
him put down on the credit side the home
stead, $1,000, and OH the other side the
value of time annually lost for want of en-
ployment; add wages and other debts lost
and uncolectable; add also the difference of
buying for cash if he had it and for credit if
he can get it; put down, too, the loss of
good opportunities for want Of credit, the
anXieties, the dissipation of mind through
uncertainties, the generalization from idle
ness-dN of rhich are legitimate results of
these lntrs-and he will find that he pays all
sorts of a heavy percentage for his $4,000,
and yet more dearly if he has less than that
amount for his homestead.


| Who suffer from the effects of these laws
which thus scare away money and credit:


The capitalist, partially, in loss of debts,
in difficulty Of collection, in failure of III
come from prior loans; but he has some
thing to fall back on; and if he be in any
degree producer, if he have tobacco, grain,
cattle, &C., to sell, he is sure of cash mar
ket elsewhere, and can invest the proceeds
in safe places.


The man of the second class suffers in
care, in thwarted plans, in contraction of
operations; but ,oant does not, as a rule,
approach his class


But on the laborer, the man of little or no
means, the evils of "tight" times fall most
heavily. His time unemployed, his capital,
the skill, reputation, and power of labor,
unavailable, no money to be had, he sees
want pressing day by day closer and nearer,
with no visible avenue of escape.


i have painted no fancy picture !; it Is one
the coIors of which are coming out more
and more yividly in true delineation.
! We are now in no ordinary situation.
There never was a greater distress for mo-
ney, not for purposes Of indulgence or specu-
lation only, but for necessities. The strin-
gency is the natural result OF what has been
stated. The causes are chronic. The trou-
| BILE uiN increase. Who can fortell the end?


Some look to the new crop forrelief. Will
it afford it? When the crop is sold what
becomes of the proceeds? Part goes to pay
pressing home debts this forms our circula-
ton. Part is sent abroad to pay for ferti-
lzers, goods, machinery, insurance, &c., from
markets out of the State. 1t does us no good,
and we see it no more. The residue-the
surplus-frightened by the relief legislation,
is loaned or invested abroad.


What is the remedy? We must strive to
| retain our own capital and offer every in
ducement to capital from without to come
and stay with Us rs loans or as investments
| in enterprises.


To do so we must change the policy and
| legislation of the State so as to restore con-
fdence and give to capital an assurance of
permanent safety or prompt pay ment and
easy recovery, and so as to show that in pub
lie and private the sacredness of contracts
| will ne respected and observed and never
more tampered with by law. DO this,
and capital will flow in and remain with us
here where everything in nature invites its
employment and pledges it success. 1t will
feel safe as Una with her lion. Circulation
will be free and abundant--money easy
trade sure and active. There will be full
and profitable employment for all, and the
heart of the poor man will rejoice, and his
mind be at ease, and his way open TO better
things. The avenues of productive indus
dry will DE full Of busy life, developing our
State and multiplying its wealth.
The remedy must first be the rejection
and repeal of the laws yiolative OF contracts,
embarrassing or preventing their inforce-
| ment. 4


There must be an increase Of the facilities
by which property can be subjected to La
bility for debt even to making land liable TO
leuy like personally.


DO this, and we will again prosper from
healthy circulation. Refuse it, and we will
live on in a bloodless, driedup, half-liying,
half-parayzed, torpid semi-existence, starv-
| ing on our homestead" while the rich man
grows poor, and the poor man sinks into
hopeless Indulgence and Want, under the
blight of the relief laws-a curse worse than
the Papal ipterdict of other days.


The history Of England'S prosperity and
wealth shows lis that the rise and progress
of her "middle classes" and the growth Of
her power and riches and commerce began
and have kept even pace with the remove
of restrictions on alienation OF property and
on its liability for the obligations Of its
holder.


How long shall we persist in the folly of
saying to creditor, You shall not make your
debt out of your debtors property, refuse
him the protection of the law and array it
against him, and at the same time ask him
| W clcaIC luoAC ucols-PuI ouC luotc capital
in so hostile and insecure place?


Answer to your own intelligence and con-
science: Are not these "relief" laws a
curse 10 those on whose behalf they were
enacted? Are they not running those whom
they profess to benefit, dwarting the State,
degrading her people, destroying the many
for the sake OF the few!


Ought we not, must we not, in self-de-
fence, seek for prompt relief in their repesl
/ at Washington and at home?