ptcy laws have always been unpopular
in many parts of the country. The Democrat who strictly construed
the Constitution did not like to see this power of Congress
vigorously exercised. The National Courts, who must administer
such laws, were always the object of jealousy and suspicion
in the South and West. The people did not like to be summoned
to attend the settlement of an estate in bankruptcy, hundreds
and hundreds of miles, to the place where the United States
Court was sitting, in States like Texas or Missouri. The
sympathy of many communities is apt to be with the debtor,
and not with the creditors, who were represented as harpies
or vultures preying on the flesh of their unfortunate victims.
A good example of this prejudice will be found in an extract
from the speech of Senator Ingalls, of Kansas. He said in
defending what was known as the equity scheme:

"The opposition arose first, from the great wholesale merchants
in the chief distributing centres of the country. They have
their agents and attorneys in the vicinity of every debtor,
obtaining early information of approaching disaster, and ready
to avail themselves of the local machinery of State courts
by attachment or by preferences, through which they can secure
full payment of their claims, to the exclusion of less powerful
or less vigilant but equally meritorious creditors. Naturally
they want no Bankrupt law of any description.

"Second. From the disabled veterans of the old army registers;
from the professional assignees and wreckers of estates, who,
by exorbitant fees and collusive sales of assets to convenient
favorites, plundered debtor and creditor alike and made the
system an engine of larceny and confiscation.

"Third. From those who desire, instead of a system for the
discharge of honest but unfortunate debtors upon the surrender
of their estates, a criminal code and a thumb-screw machine
for the collection of doubtful and desperate debts. They
covet a return to the primitive practices which prevailed
in Rome, when the debtor was sold into slavery or had his
body cut into pieces and distributed pro rata among his creditors.

"Fourth. From those timid and cautious conservatives who
believe that nothing is valuable that is not venerable.

"Like the statesman described by Macaulay, they prefer to
perish by precedent rather than be saved by innovation. They
adhere to ancient failures rather than incur the risk of success
through