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the use of those faculties which have been given to himand for what? Does the creditor gain by it? Has he a chance of obtaining more? I have the authority of experience for saying, that the chance is not worth estimating. Look at the operation of those laws, which grant only a partial discharge. Is a creditor in a better condition for the hold he has upon the future earnings of the debtor? One of two consequences inevitably follows; the debtor either sinks into a state of hopeless and helpless inaction, or conceals the fruits of his industry by various contrivances that are hurtful to his and to the public morals. Besides, we must never forget, that it is for misfortune that this provision is to be made; for misfortune, which no prudence can avert or prevent, but which is inseparably incident to the pursuits of those who are proposed to be comprehended in this law. But I forbear, at present, to press this part of the

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case."

I would beg leave to remark, however, that I confine myself to the exemption of the earnings of his industry. I have no objection to give to his creditors whatever he may afterwards acquire by gift, devise, descent, or any other means, in short, but his own exertions. Of these he should have the full benefit, not only for his own sake, but for the sake of society.

It was not my intention to notice the objections to particular parts of the bill, nor will I at this time notice them. There are two or three objections of a more general cha-. racter, upon which I will ask the indulgence of the committee to say a very few words.

A system, it is said, must be a bad one, and contain in itself very strong temptations to fraud, which requires such bloody penalties as are to be found in the English statutes. The whole penal code of England is deeply stained with blood. When Blackstone composed his Commentaries, he. mentioned, with regret, that of the offences which a man may commit, no less than one hundred and forty were

capital felonies, punishable with death. How many may have since been added by statute, to the catalogue, I do not know. The bankrupt laws of England are in the spirit of the rest of this code, and their penalties are no better evidence of the temptations offered by those laws, than are the penalties in the laws for securing life and property, that the security of life and property offers a great temptation to the perpetration of murder and robbery. You may trace it, if you please, to the state of society; you may trace it to the error of the legislature, or to a general want of humanity in their institutions, to extreme prodigality in the punishment of death, but not to the mere existence of laws for securing life and property.

Again; it is said, that a bankrupt law must be a source of endless litigation, and the evidence of it is a bill that passed some time ago for completing the execution of commissions under the former law. To make this argument available, it would be necessary to know how many cases. were finished, and how many remain incomplete. It might be useful, then, to compare the proportion of each, with the cases of each kind under the state insolvent laws. The comparison would be decidedly in favour of the bankrupt law, unless, indeed, the cases under the insolvent law are considered as terminating with the discharge of the debtor, for, in truth, very little more ever comes of them. It may be well, however, to remind the honourable member who thinks the want of a court of chancery of so great importance, that a system without it must be a wretched system; it may be well to remind him that one of the chief objections to a court of chancery, so commonly urged, is, that its proceedings are interminable. But, I am sensible that I have already trespassed too long on the attention of the House.

SPEECH

ON THE BANK OF THE UNITED STATES, DELIVERED IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, FEBRUARY 22, 1819.

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[On the 30th November 1818, on motion of Mr. Spencer, of New-York, a resolution instituting a committee of inquiry into the affairs of the Bank of the United States, passed the House of Representatives. The committee, consisting of Mr. Spencer, Mr. Lowndes, Mr. M'Lane, Mr. Burwell, and Mr. Tyler, reported on the 16th January 1819. A majority of the committée, Messrs. Spencer, Burwell, and Tyler, were of opinion that the charter of the Bank had been violated in the following instances:

1. In purchasing two millions of public debt, in order to substitute them for two other millions of similar debt, which it had contracted to sell, or had sold in England, and which the Secretary of the Treasury claimed the right of redeeming.

2. In not requiring the fulfilment of the engagement made by the stockholders, on subscribing, to pay the second and third instalments on the stock in coin or funded debt. 3. In paying dividends to stockholders who had not completed their instalments.

4. By the judges of the first and second elections allowing many persons to give more than thirty votes each, under the pretence of their being attorneys for others in whose names shares then stood; when those judges, the directors, and officers of the Bank, knew that these shares belonged to the persons offering to vote upon them as attorneys.

On the 19th January, Mr. Trimble, of Kentucky, offered the following resolution. Resolved, That the Attorney General of the United States, in conjunction with the District Attorney of Pennsylvania, shall immediately cause a scire facias to be issued, according to the 23d Section of the Act "to incorporate the subscribers to the Bank of the United States," calling on the corporation created by the said act to show cause wherefore the charter thereby granted shall not be declared forfeited, &c.

On the 31st January, Mr. Spencer offered a resolution directing the Secretary of the Treasury to withdraw the public deposites from the Bank, and the Attorney General to cause a scire faéias to be sued out, with the view to try the question of forfeiture, unless the Bank should assent to a series of propositions, which, when assented to, were to be made, by Act of Congress, part of the charter of the Bank.

On the 9th February, Mr. Johnson, of Virginia, submitted a resolution instructing the committee on the Judiciary to report a bill repealing the charter of the Bank.

It was during the discussion of these resolutions that this speech was delivered. The principal other speakers were Messrs. Spencer, Pindall, Barbour, and Tyler, against the Bank, and Messrs. Lowndes, M'Lane, and Storrs, in defence of it.-The resolutions were rejected.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: I must beg the permission of the committee, to offer to them some observations upon the several propositions that are now submitted for their consideration and decision.

The inquiry in which we are engaged, is attended with some intrinsic difficulties, of no inconsiderable magnitude, and calculated very much to embarrass our deliberations, as they must have been to embarrass the deliberations of the select committee, to whom the examination of this subject was more particularly confided. In the first place, it is retrospective, and I admit it is necessarily so. We are called upon to take a review of the management and conduct of the bank, during all the period of its existence, and we expect to find that the best has been done in every instance, which, with the full light derived from a knowledge of all that has since happened, appears to us to have been possible. In this manner it is, that battles are fought over again in discussion; and, whether they have been lost or whether they have been won, it seldom happens that those who thus sit in judgment upon them, cannot detect some errors that have been committed-point out advantages that have been lost-and opportunities that have been suffered to pass unimproved. The just rule of judgment in such cases, if, indeed, its application were practicable, would be to place ourselves in the situation of those, upon whose conduct we are called to pass, in the midst of the difficulties by which they were surrounded, and with no better view of the future than what their own judgment could afford them.

It is in the nature, too, of this inquiry, conducted as it has been, to group and connect together all the exceptionable acts that have been done by those to whom the management of the institution has been confided: while, to use a bank phrase, it gives no credit for those things which were right, and even entitled to some commendation. I wish, sir, to be distinctly understood. I am not using the language either of complaint or censure. I only say, that as the inquiry, from its nature, was in a great measure confined to exceptionable acts, it must necessarily present them in a body, without relief from their association with the mass of good deeds with which, in their order, they stood

entitle us to differ from them in opinion, and freely and fully to canvass the grounds of the report.

Before, however, I proceed to examine the report, I beg leave to call the attention of the committee to the authority under which we have been acting, as it is to be found in the law for incorporating the subscribers to the bank. The provisions of the charter, designed to secure the faithful administration of the bank, contain in them a distribution of powers, just in itself, and perfectly well adapted to attain the object. The power given to this house, (section 23) is confined to a single point of inquiry, namely, whether or not the charter has been violated; in order that we may be enabled to judge whether or not it is expedient to institute legal proceedings for its repeal. The examination we are authorized to make, is subordinate to this object; and, to my mind, it is quite clear that we have no right to pursue it further. The care of the remaining interests of the government in the institution, is confided to the Executive. The President appoints the government directors. The Secretary of the Treasury has an almost unlimited power of examining the proceedings of the bank. Weekly statements are to be made to him, (sec. 11, art. 15) and he has the right to inspect every thing except the accounts of individuals. The purpose is manifest. It is, in the first place, to enable him to judge of the conduct of the directors appointed by the government. It is, in the next place, to enable him to decide whether the public interest in the bank, consisting of the stock belonging to the government, and the deposites of public money, is faithfully guarded. The necessary sanction for enforcing the exercise of this power is also confided to the Executive. The President has authority to appoint, and to him is given the authority to remove, the directors on the part of the government (sec. 8.) A much more important sanction is the power given to the Secretary of the Treasury, by section 16, to withdraw the public deposites, laying before Congress his