Mr. COWAN. I have merely a word to say, and I wish to say it before the final vote is taken. I am opposed to the bill in toto, for other, however, and very different reasons than those given by the Senfrom Massachusetts. I am opposed to the bill because it is to be administered through the medium of registers and the U.S. courts, machinery utterly and totally unable to administer any law of the kind, and which will render it so obnoxious that it will not remain on the statute book longer than the act of 1841 did; and that went from the books simply because it was administered in the States courts. Mr. President, a bankrupt law to be effica cious must be as near to the people as an insolvent law, a stay law, or any other law. You cannot administer any law of this kind in a great State like Pennsylvania, for instance, with the courts 150 miles apart: it is utterly impossible. The people eannot get to them. The court becomes merely the medium by which all the rogues and knaves of the country are sifted through in fraud of their creditors; and the creditors in such cases not being able to get into the courts, except very few of them, never get a dividend. I think in western Pennsylvania, under the bankrupt law of 1841, there never was a dividend made; there never was a dollar paid to a creditor; and the creditors, other than those who resided perhaps in the city of Pittsburg, could not get to the court. How was a man to go 100 miles who had a claim against a bankrupt, say for $100? He would say at once, “It is not worth while to go for that; I might just as well lose it as go there and give it hif to the lawyers, to prevent this fellow from pursuing his fraudulent claim to a discharge;” and hence it is that the creditors give it up, stay at home, and the whole results in a gross and gigantic fraud, which the people will soon repudiate and strike out. Under the Constitution it is the duty of congress to pass uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy, just as it is their duty to pass uniform rules of naturalization; but these laws ought to be administered in the State courts, where they can be brought to the doors of the "; and where those whose interests are to e affected by the proceedings in bankruptcy can go into court, and where they can go without such extraordinary expenses as would be incurred by going to U.S. courts. If then, the bill had been framed so as to be administered in the common law courts of the U.S., there is no difficulty in the world about it; no necessity in the world why you should create 200 or 300 or 500 or 600 registers, and cover the country with a swarm of officers. If it had been put, I say, into the State courts and administered through the common law judges of the State courts known to the people, where the business of the country is wont to be administered then the law might have been efficacious. There is nothing about the law which requires it to be administered in the U.S. courts. In fact every characteristic of the law would require it to be administered in the State courts, in the common law courts. I know that a great many people entertain the idea that it is like the fugitive slave law; you could not compel the State courts to administer it. That is not the case; State courts administer the naturalization laws; and why not administer the bankrupt laws? The clause in the Constitution which confers authority over both is in pari materia and almost in haec verba, almost in the same words. Mr. President, believing, as I do, that this law will simply become the engine of fraud and corruption, and will become odious to the people, as all laws of the kind must necessarily be when they are carried into strange tribunals, and when they are required to travel 150 or 200 miles before they can get to them, I am opposed to this bill. I agree it may do very well in RhdIsland; it may do very well in Delaware; it might do in a small State where the U.S. court is convenient; but in a great State like NewYork, Pennsylvania, or Ohio, to my mind it is as idle a dream as ever was entertained to suppose that you can administer a bankrupt law there and make it satisfactory to the people; and I venture the prediction now, that if you pass this bill it will not remain on your statute book unrepealed 2 years.