Mr. DOOLITTLE. My opinion is that wherever the law of a State has allowed a person to set apart a given amount of property, personal or real, which is set apart, for the benefit of the family as a homestead, there are other parties besides the man himself, who have an interest in that property. It belongs to the family, to the wife, to the children of the family, and the law gives it as a special property set apart for the benefit, not of this particular man, but for the independence and the support of the family, to prevent the family from o:so impoverished as to come upon the town. For this reason the laws of the several States controlling that subject authorize this property to be set apart in trust for the family; and they further authorize it to be held by the family independent of the debts which may be incurred by the head of the family. That property being thus set apart be comes a sacred trust fund not liable to be reached by the creditors, and each State judges for itself to what extent this trust fund shall be set apart, and that independent of the judgment of creditors. And when the law of Congress simply says that the property which is thus set apart in the several States for the benefitof the family as a homestead shall not be reached by the operation of this bankrupt law, I maintain that this bankrupt law is uniform. The same rule prevails in one State as in another. It is the same rule in Illinois that it is in Wisconsin. The rule is that under this bankrupt law the creditor shall only reach such property as is liable to be reached by a creditor; in short, that the creditor shall not reach the trust fund which the State has allowed to be set aside, not for the man, because the moment he ceases to be the head of a family or to live in his homestead he ceases to have any right in this property, and then it becomes liable to be reached by cred itors; but so long as the family exists it is set apart as a trust fund for that family. The law of the State regards the debt which a man owes to his wife and his children, the obligation into which he enters when he contracts the marriage relation and establishes a family, as the most sacred of all debts, the debt of all others which the State is willing to defend in order to secure the independence and the existence of the family itself. This homestead, therefore, is a sacred trust fund, wholly independent of creditors; and, if we pass a law which allows creditors to reach all the rest of a debtor's property and not reach this trust fund set apart for his family, I do not think it is a violation of the Constitution in not being uniform. It is true the laws of the States may vary, and the amount of the trust fund is not precisely in one State as it is in another, but the rule by which you reach the debtor's property is precisely, the same rule in every State, and the rule by which you are limited in reaching it is the same in every State. 'Mr. TRUMBULL. It is not an uncommon thing for attorneys in arguing cases to get up some other point than the one before the court. The Senfrom Wisconsin has been arguing about a trust fund belonging to the family. That is not the question. This bill in its legal effect is precisely the same as though it had incorporated into it the exemption law of every State in this Union. Does the Senator deny that? The language is, after proceeding to exempt certain property: And such other property not included in the fore going exceptions as is exempted from levy and sale upon executionby the laws of theState in bankrupt which the has his domicile at the time of the commencementof the proceedings in bankruptcy. This law is to operate, not simply for the Present, but for the future. Now let me put a case to the Senfrom Wisconsin. Suppose the Legislature of the State of Wisconsin, now in session, should pass a law that all the property of a debtor, the whole of it, should be exempt from execution whether he had a family or not; suppose the State of Wisconsin should pass such a law in March next, and we pass this bankrupt bill today, and you should endeavor to enforce it in Wisconsin, what would be the result? This act declares that whatever property is exempt from levy and sale upon execution by the laws of the State of Wisconsin, in which the bankrupt has his domicile at the time of the commencement of the proceedings in bankruptcy, shall be exempted under this law. This bill makes that State law a part of it. It is not merely the laws of the various States now exempting property from execution and sale, but whatever law exists in any State hereafter at the time the proceeding in bankruptcy is instituted is made a part of this bankrupt act.