so, we shall be constrained to believe, that it is because they have not the disposition to do justice to the measure, and to our fellow citizens who have asked for it.

At the proper time, I shall myself venture to propose two amendments, and there is one, it is understood, will be proposed, to which I shall certainly not object. I mean to bring forward a provision to enable a man in failing circumstances, to apply for a commission of bankruptcy, retaining, however, the compulsory power, in cases where no such application is made. The design of the provision

would be, to enable the debtor to attain by direct and permitted means, what he would otherwise be obliged to accomplish by the irregular machinery of a concerted commission. The end would be the same, but a concerted bankruptcy is liable to the objection, that it is founded on an unlawful fiction. Another provision proposed, will be for the purpose of obtaining authentic evidence of the practical operation of the law, by requiring the commissioners to make frequent returns, at stated times, of the cases which shall occur. The amendment alluded to, as likely to come from another quarter, is to enlarge the description of persons who may be voluntary bankrupts, or, in other words, who may have the benefit of the law. If the gentleman from South Carolina, (Mr. Lowndes,) who has strongly stated and maintained the necessity and policy of a bankrupt law, will concur with the friends of the bill, in the effort to amend it, many, if not most of his objections, may certainly be removed. To wait until we can conciliate the opinion of every member of the house, upon every part of a bill like this-until we shall all agree, not only upon the principle, but upon every subordinate enactment -is to postpone it indefinitely—it is to mock the hopes of those who are anxiously looking for the measure, by keeping it forever before their eyes, but never placing it within their reach. Something must be yielded upon minor points of no great importance.

Let us remember how long such a bill has been before us. For nearly ten years, I believe, it has in some way or other, been on our tables. Five years ago, it was discussed in this house. Last session it passed the senate, and came to us, too late, it was then said, to receive a deliberate examination. Sometimes it is too early; sometimes too late; sometimes it is too much discussed, and the house from mere weariness suffer it to drop from their hands by an indirect decision; then again, there is not time enough for discussion, and it is put by for a future occasion. And at last, when it is seasonably brought forward and we have been weeks engaged upon it, with pressing memorials, urging and beseeching us for the passage of the law, we find out that this is not exactly the law that it ought to be. And what then? The natural answer would seem to be, to make it what it ought to be, to expunge what is wrong, and endeavour to insert what you think right. Shall we ever be better prepared than we now are ?-But no; we are to wait for some undefined time, until, by some undefinable means, a perfect work shall be presented to our acceptance, so perfect, indeed, as to admit of neither objection nor improvement. I can only say, that if it correspond with this description, it will not come from human hands, and it must not be subjected to human criticism, or it can never be free from a mixture of evil; and if it were, the presumptuous wisdom of man would not suffer it to escape the imputation of defect.

If we are satisfied that the measure is necessary, let us make the best bill we can, and be satisfied with the sincerity and the reality of our exertions. Experience is a great teacher, and will point out to us defects, and their remedies, with far greater certainty than speculative and conjectural reasoning. Let us begin, and afterwards improve, if necessary; but let us begin.

I am obliged, however, to say, that justice has not been done to this bill, and I feel myself bound to endeavour to

vindicate it from the heavy charges that have been brought against it, especially by the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. A. Smyth.) I am well aware, that the reply to his criticisms, some of them very minute, will be tedious and uninteresting. But the house will bear in mind, that long as the bill has been before them, and long as it has been under discussion, there are probably very few of the members who have examined it throughout, and collated its different provisions. This is one of the most serious difficulties its advocates have to encounter. From its necessary length; from the indifference felt about it by many, and from other causes, it is imposssible to obtain for it a close and careful attention. We are much indebted to any one who will be at the pains taken by the gentleman from North Carolina, (Mr. Sawyer,) to examine and unfold its different parts.

From similar causes, operating even more powerfully, the public is likely to know little of the details, as the remonstrance from New York, which the gentleman from New York, (Mr. Colden,) has shewn to be founded in error and misconception-most fully proves. Under these circumstances, objections, though destitute of real foundation, or exaggerated greatly beyond their natural bearing, are apt to make a strong impression, especially when they come from a gentleman of as much research as the member from Virginia, (Mr. A. Smyth,) who seldom offers himself to the house without due preparation, and delivers his opinions with a deliberate gravity that cannot fail to have effect, when he speaks upon a subject with which his professional pursuits are supposed to have made him acquainted. What then will he say, if I venture now to tell him, that there is scarcely one of the specific objections, upon which he has rested his general denunciation of the bill, which is supported in point of fact? The cause of some of his errors is obvious. He has been studying the bankrupt law of England, instead of the bill upon the table, and has been insist

ing upon objectional provisions in the former, without sufficiently examining how far they are corrected by the latter. Thus (to follow his own order,) he objected, that the description of a trader, who might be a bankrupt, was too broad, and would comprehend every person who should buy and sell, in however smali a quantity, though buying and selling was not his occupation; and he dwelt upon the whimsical distinctions produced by this ambiguous description. A bleacher, he said,—and I thank him for selecting that illustration, cannot be a bankrupt, because he only bestows his labour; a dyer may, because he buys the dying drugs. That is the law of England, but it is not this bill, as he has himself, 1 believe, in very general terms, admitted. Why then introduce it at all? Those who did not carefully listen, and carefully examine, too, might be led into the error of supposing, that the same objectionable ambiguity remained in the bill, and that it was so inartificially constructed as to copy servilely even acknowledged defects in the law of England. Whereas, in truth, all these things are carefully, and scrupulously, and I believe, adequately guarded against by the proviso at the end of the section.* I beg the particular attention of the member from Virginia to that proviso, and call upon him, if he thinks there is any further amendment necessary, to aid us in making it; if not, to abandon this objection as untenable.

He has fallen into another error of the same sort. He seems, indeed, to have studied very diligently, the English bankrupt law, but not to have paid sufficient attention to this bill. If, said he, a servant, by the orders of his master, deny his master to a creditor, the master may be made a bankrupt, and is irretrievably ruined, even though he

* "If their living is substantially gotten by mechanical labour, though with some mixture of buying and selling, they shall not as such only be deemed or taken to be within the provisions of this bill."

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were solvent and able to pay all his debts. This is not so. Denial by this bill, is not an act of bankruptcy, nor the evidence of it. By the law of England, "keeping house," or "beginning to keep house," is the act of bankruptcy, and denial is the evidence. But by this bill, "keeping house" is not an act of bankruptcy; it is "keeping house so that he cannot be taken or served with process." The act of bankruptcy, therefore, is not committed, until the debtor is reduced to the extremity of having process actually issued against him, and defeats its execution by keeping within the legal defence of his house. As to this, however, and the other acts alluded to, which involve grave considerations, of too much importance to be now discussed, if any one thinks them not sufficiently guarded, let him candidly bring forward a clause more explicit—I mean at the proper time. Then, too, I will point out to the same gentleman from Virginia, a matter of fact answer to another of his arguments, which, in his own words, was stated thus: "When one is declared a bankrupt, the declaration has relation back to the time of committing the act of bankruptcy, so as to avoid his subsequent acts." It assuredly is not so. The commission has no relation at all, against bona fide acts of the bankrupt, done in the course of his business, without notice on the part of the person who deals with him, as he may see most carefully provided in the eleventh section. Such transactions will not be affected. And as to other acts of the bankrupt, I perceive again, he has been misled by the law of England, for in this bill, the relation is expressly limited to six months before the commission issued. If he had done this bill the justice to bestow upon it a little more of the time which he has employed in studying the law of England, he would have thought better of its provisions. They are of a nature to improve upon acquaintance.

Besides objecting to what the bill does, the same gentleman has objected to what it omits to do, and under this