Mr. FOGG. As I said before, I do not expect to be able to vote for this bill, because I do not believe that any considerable portion of my constituents favor it. As was stated yesterday, it has been the fate of the 2 bankrupt bills that have existed heretofore in this country to have been vastly unpopular with the people. It has been their fate to be early repealed; in one case to have been repealed by the very Congress that enacted it; and to all who remember the operations of that bill I believe the very memory of it among the masses of the people is as odious as any act that ever stood upon the statutes of the American Congress. bill is only demanded, I believe, by a small portion of the American people. It is only demanded, and I believe will only be tolerated, in a commercial community. Among the masses of the yeomanry of the country, among the farmers of the country, among the mechanics of the country, among the men who earn their bread by the sweat of their brows, and only contract debts when necessary, and always with the purpose of honestly paying them, this bill seems to be a dishonest : all such bills seem to be dishonest bills. It is a bill to enable a debtor to repudiate the contract which he has honestly made with his creditor for a value which he has received. Some portions of the principles involved in this bill are an every day occurrence in commercial communities. A man contracts debts; he is unfortunate; he cannot pay them; and his creditors compound with him, and almost always do so when there is no law. The Senfrom Maryland has said that there is no difference in principle between debts contracted under this E and debts contracted before its passage. It seems to me the Senator cannot have well considered that remark. All the debts contracted prior to this law have been contracted without any honest mental reservation that the contract might be repudiated, either by any legal proceedings or any illegal proceedings, by any honest means or by any dishonest means. Therefore, you are pAssing a law here to enable a debtor to exercise a power against his creditor which he did not have a right to exercise when he contracted his debt, which he does not have the right to exercise today. The debtor who contracts a debt after the passage of this act contracts it knowing, if he is an intelligent man, and his creditor knowing, that in a certain contingency or contingencies he may repudiate the debt; he may come into court and surren der his property and tell his creditor to take what little he has got, which is not exempt by either State law or national law, and make the most of it, and obtain a discharge. The man who contracted a debt before such a law was in existence contracted it knowing that no such act existed, knowing that the property possessed by him was liable to be i. under judicial proceedings to satisfy the debt, knowing that there was no civil or other jurisdiction which could wipe out the obligation which he accepted from fi, creditor. The difference is very great it seems to me. While I am up, I desire to say one word in relation to the practical operation of this bill in another respect. By the action of the senate in refusing to make this a uniform bank: rupt law for I think that was the result and making it vary according to the laws of the different States, you enable a person in one State who may have $5,000 or $7,000, for in California the exemption is $5,000 of gold value amounting at least to $7,000 in currency, to retain that property in his possession visible to all the world, and if he has a debt of $300 he may go into voluntary bankruptcy, live in his nice house, have his horses and his car riage if you please, and I do not know what else; surrender his debt of $300 to his creditor, and surrender nothing else under Heaven, provided he does not have more than $5,000 or $7,000, or it may be $50,000; for I am told in some of the States the exemption is of a kind which would allow $50,000; but when he owes merely $300 he may go into bankruptcy and wipe out that $300, and retain a fortune and be a gentleman, and it may be that that $800 creditor may be a poor man who has not a tithe of the propery which he possesses. Mr. President, it seems to me that when this law goes before the peeople, when the few debt ors who are clamoring for it have got their purpose, you will find one universal cry of repeal among the people..Every man who holds obligations that are wiped out by this law will feel, even if his debtor is worth nothing, that he has been cheated out of so much money; that he has been robbed to that extent; and the law will be as odious as the law of 1841 was odious, and will be as fatal politically to the party and to the men who enact it as that law was. Mr. President, I do not propose to detain the Senate in further discussing this bill. I only desire to utter my solemn protest against it; and if I were in the habit of predicting I would utter a prediction againstit; but as I am not in the habit of predicting I shall save myself that trouble, and save myself from the mortification of being mistaken if I should not prove a true prophet.