dustrious, the more disposed to struggle and bear up against his misfortunes, the greater the chance is, that in the end, especially if the humanity of others shall have led them to release him, their own debts may be finally recovered.

Now, in this state of our constitutional powers and duties, in this state of our laws, and with this actually existing condition of so many insolvents before us, it is not too serious to ask every member of the Senate to put it to his own conscience to say, whether we are not bound to exercise our constitutional duty. Can we abstain from exercising it? The States give to their own laws all the effect they can. This shows that they desire the power to be exercised. Several States have, in the most solemn manner, made known their earnest wishes to Congress. If we still refuse, what is to be done? Many of these insolvent persons are young men, with young families. Like other men, they have capacities both for action and enjoyment. Are we to stifle all these, forever? Are we to suffer all persons, many of them meritorious and respectable, to be pressed to the earth forever, by a load of helpless debt? The existing diversities and contradictions of State laws on the subject admirably illustrate the objects of this part of the Constitution, as stated by Mr. Madison; and they form that precise case for which the clause was inserted. The very evil intended to be provided against is before us, and around us, and pressing us on all sides. How can we, how dare we, make a perfect dead letter of this part of the Constitution, which we have sworn to support? The insolvent persons have not the power of locomotion. They cannot travel from State to State. They are prisoners. To my certain knowledge, there are many who cannot even come here to the seat of Government, to present their petitions to Congress, so great is their fear that some creditor will dog their heels, and arrest them in some intervening State, or in this District, in the hope that friends will appear to save them, by payment of the debts, from imprisonment. These are truths; not creditable to the country, but they are truths. I am sorry for their existence. Sir, there is one crime, quite too common, which the laws of man do not punish, but which cannot escape the justice of God; and that is, the arrest and confinement of a debtor, by his creditor, with no motive on earth but the hope that some friend, or some relative, perhaps almost as poor as himself, his mother it may be, or his sisters, or his daughters, — will give up all their own little pittance, and make beggars of themselves, to save him from the horrors of a loathsome jail. Human retribution cannot reach this guilt; human feeling may not penetrate the flinty heart that perpetrates it; but an hour is surely coming,, with more than human retribution on its wings, when that flint shall be melted, either by the power of penitence and grace, or in the fires of remorse.

Sir, I verily believe that the power of perpetuating debts against

debtors, for no substantial good to the creditor himself, and the power of imprisonment for debt, at least as it existed in this country ten years ago, have imposed more restraint on personal liberty than the law of debtor and creditor imposes in any other Christian and commercial country. If any public good were attained, any high political object answered, by such laws, there might be some reason for counselling submission and sufferance to individuals. But the result is bad, every way. It is bad to the public and to the country, which loses the efforts and the industry of so many useful and capable citizens. It is bad to creditors, because there is no security against preferences, no principle of equality, and no encouragement for honest, fair, and seasonable assignments of effects. As to the debtor, however good his intentions or earnest his endeavors, it subdues his spirit, and degrades him in his own esteem; and if he attempts any thing for the purpose of obtaining food and clothing for his family, he is driven to unworthy shifts and disguises, to the use of other persons' names, to the adoption of the character of agent, and various other contrivances, to keep the little earnings of the day from the reach of his creditors. Fathers act in the name of their sons, sons act in the name of their fathers; all constantly exposed to the greatest temptation to misrepresent facts and to evade the law, if creditors should strike. All this is evil, unmixed evil. And what is it all for? What good to any body? Who likes it? Who wishes it? What class of creditors desires it? What consideration of public good demands it?

Sir, we talk much, and talk warmly, of political liberty; and well we may, for it is among the chief of public blessings. But who can enjoy political liberty if he is deprived, permanently, of personal liberty, and the exercise of his own industry, and his own faculties? To those unfortunate individuals, doomed to the everlasting bondage of debt, what is it that we have free institutions of Government? What is it that we have public and popular assemblies? Nay, to them, what is even this Constitution itself, in its actual operation, and as we now administer it, what is its aspect to them, but an aspect of stern, implacable severity? - an aspect of refusal, denial, and frowning rebuke?-nay, more than that, an aspect not only of austerity and rebuke even, but, as they must think it, of plain injustice also; since it will not relieve them, nor suffer others to give them relief. What love can they feel towards the Constitution of their country, which has taken the power of striking off their bonds from their own paternal State Governments, and yet, inexorable to all the cries of justice and of mercy, holds it, unexercised, in its own fast and unrelenting clinch? They find themselves bondsmen, because we will not execute the commands of the Constitution - bondsmen to debts they cannot pay, and which all know they cannot pay, and which take away the power of supporting them

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selves. Other slaves have masters, charged with the duty of support and protection; but their masters neither clothe, nor feed, nor shelter; they only bind.

But, Sir, the fault is not in the Constitution. The Constitution is beneficent as well as wise in all its provisions on this subject; but the fault, I must be allowed to say, is in us, who have suffered ourselves quite too long to neglect the duty incumbent upon us. The time will come, Sir, when we shall look back and wonder at the long delay of this just and salutary measure. We shall feel, as we now feel, when we reflect on that progress of opinion which has already done so much on another connected subject; I mean the abolition of imprisonment for debt. What should we say at this day, if it were proposed to reestablish arrest and imprisonment for debt, as it existed in most of the States even so late as twenty years ago? I mean for debt alone, for mere, pure debt, without charge or suspicion of fraud or falsehood.

Sir, it is about that length of time, I think, since you, who now preside over our deliberations, began here your efforts for the abolition of imprisonment for debt; and a better work was never begun in the Capitol. Ever remembered and ever honored be that noble effort! You drew the attention of the public to the question, whether, in a civilized and Christian country, debt incurred without fraud, and remaining unpaid without fault, is a crime, and a crime fit to be punished by denying to the offender the enjoyment of the light of heaven, and shutting him up within four walls. Your own good sense, and that instinct of right feeling, which often outruns sagacity, carried you at once to a result to which others were more slowly brought, but to which nearly all have at length been brought, by reason, reflection, and argument. Your movement led the way; it became an example, and has had a powerful effect on both sides of the Atlantic. Imprisonment for debt, or even arrest and holding to bail for mere debt, no longer exists in England; and former laws on the subject have been greatly modified and mitigated, as we all know, in our States. "Abolition of imprisonment for debt " - your own words in the title of your own bill - have become the title of an act of Parliament.

Sir, I am glad of an occasion to pay you the tribute of my own sincere respect for these your labors in the cause of humanity and enlightened policy. For these labors thousands of grateful hearts have thanked you; and other thousands of hearts, not yet full of joy for the accomplishment of their hopes,full, rather, at the present moment, of deep and distressing anxiety, have yet the pleasure to know that your advice, your counsel, and your influence, will all be given in favor of what is intended for their relief, in the bill before us. Mr. President, let us atone for the omissions of the past by a prompt and efficient discharge of present duty. The demand for

this measure is not partial or local. It comes to us, earnest and loud, from all classes and all quarters. The time is come when we must answer it to our own breasts, if we suffer longer delay or postponement. High hopes, high duties, and high responsibilities, concentrate themselves on this measure and this moment. With a power to pass a bankrupt law, that which no other Legislature in the country possesses,—with a power of giving relief to many, doing injustice to none, I again ask every man who hears me, if he can content himself without an honest attempt to exercise that power? We may think it would be better to leave the power with the States; but it was not left with the States; they have it not, and we cannot give it to them. It is in our hands, to be exercised by us, or to be forever useless and lifeless. Under these circumstances, does not every man's heart tell him that he has a duty to discharge? If the final vote shall be given this day, and if that vote shall leave thousands of our fellow-citizens and their families, in hopeless and helpless distress, to everlasting subjection to irredeemable debt, can we go to our beds with satisfied consciences? Can we lay our heads upon our pillows, and, without self-reproach, supplicate the Almighty Mercy to forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors? Sir, let us meet the unanimous wishes of the country, and proclaim relief to the unfortunate throughout the land. What should hinder? What should stay our hands from this good work? Creditors do not oppose it; they apply for it; debtors solicit it with importunity, earnestness, and anxiety, not to be described; the Constitution enjoins it; and all the considerations of justice, policy, and propriety, which are wrapped up in the phrase Public Duty, demand it, as I think, and demand it loudly and imperatively from our hands. Sir, let us gratify the whole country, for once, with the joyous clang of chains, -joyous because heard falling from the limbs of men. The wisest among those whom I address can desire nothing more beneficial than this measure, or more universally desired; and he who is youngest may not expect to live long enough to see a better opportunity of causing new pleasures and a happiness long untasted to spring up in the hearts of the poor and the humble. How many husbands and fathers are looking with hopes which they cannot suppress, and yet hardly dare to cherish, for the result of this debate! How many wives and mothers will pass sleepless and feverish nights, until they know whether they and their families shall be raised from poverty, despondency, and despair, and restored again to the circles of industrious, independent, and happy life!

Sir, let it be to the honor of Congress that, in these days of political strife and controversy, we have laid aside for once the sin that most easily besets us, and, with unanimity of counsel, and with singleness of heart and of purpose, have accomplished for our country one measure of unquestionable good.

SPEECH

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, JUNE 5, 1840, ON MR. CLAY'S MOTION TO STRIKE OUT THE COMPULSORY PART OF THE BANKRUPT BILL.

MR. WEBSTER addressed the Senate as follows:

THE Commendable temper in which the discussion has been so far conducted, leads me to hope that now, when we are in the midst of the difficulties of the question, the Senate will indulge me in a few remarks. That there are difficulties I freely acknowledge. The subject of bankruptcies is a difficult subject every where, and perhaps particularly difficult here, as one of the results of a division of legislative powers between Congress and the States. But these difficulties are not insurmountable, and their only influence, therefore, should be to stimulate our efforts, and to increase at once our caution and our zeal.

It seems agreed, by all the friends of any bankrupt bill, that there shall be a provision for voluntary bankruptcy. The question now is, whether there ought to be also a compulsory power, or a power on the part of creditors to subject their debtors, in certain cases, to the operation of the law.

It is well known that the bill by me introduced contained such a power, and I should still prefer to retain it. But I do not think this of so much importance as some other gentlemen, and should cheerfully support a bill which should not contain it, if by so doing I should contribute to the general success of the measure. In truth, on this question, and on many others, my vote will be governed by a desire to make the bill acceptable to others.

Now, Sir, the argument for the compulsory clause is, that, without this power, the creditors have no security; that the bill is a one-sided measure, a measure for the benefit and relief of debtors only, quite regardless of the just rights of creditors. All this I deny. I maintain, on the contrary, not only that there is just security for the rights of creditors under the voluntary part of the bill, but that that part, of itself, and by itself, is of the highest value and importance to creditors. This proposition takes for granted, what I have no doubt will be found true, that persons in insolvent circumstances