Mr. JOHNSON. I think the honorable member is entirely mistaken in applying the term “repudiation ” to cases of this description. No man who is unable to pay his debts, because he has no means to pay his debts; can be justly called a repudiator of his obligations. By accidental or unfortunate circumstances he has come to a condition in which it is impossiblefor him to pay his debts; and it is there: fore, in almost every community, provided that in such a contingency, looking to the in: terest of the creditor as well as to the general interest of the country, he should be freed from the harassing character of his debts, so that he may be enabled to enter into business by which he can support his family and benefit the country. And it is not peculiar to individual creditors. Governments have been obliged to do the same thing. The European Governments, England included, have often been compelled by circumstances to pay to their creditors less than the paramount of their obligations; but nobody suggested that they were justly chargeable with the offense of repudiating their obligations provided the allegations upon which they legislated were true in point of fact. The honorable member is also, as I think, mistaken in the ground upon which he attempts to draw a distinction between debts now contracted and debts which may be contracted in the future. He supposes that in relation to the latter there is no impropriety in giving to the debtor the benefit of a law of this description, because the creditor at the time the debt is contracted is supposed to be aware that there is such a mode of relief furnished by the existing law to his debtor. The argument is equally forcible, if it be true and I suppose the honorable member will not deny .”. Congress, under the power to pass a bankrupt law, may pass a law applicable to existing debts. No bankrupt law has ever been passed except because of the large amount of existing debts which were dePressing the industry of the country and ruining the debtor. When, therefore, a man, whether in the absence or in the existence of a bankrupt system, contracts a debt, his creditor is supposed to know that there is in the Congress of the U.S. a power to discharge his debtor upon his deliver. ING up his assets; and if, therefore, it would be proper to apply the principle which the honorable member proposes to apply to debts contracted after this law shall be passed, because the creditor is supposed to know of the existence of the law when he becomes a creditor, it is equally proper to apply it to existing debts because he is supposed to iothat under the !. to pass uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy Congress may provide that existing debts may be discharged by means of a bankrupt law, as well as prospective debts. And the honorable member (although it is not involved in the particular amendment) is also mistaken in supposing that a bankrupt law can be applied only to mercantile debts or debts quasi mercantile. In the beginning no one ever doubted the power of Parliament to pass laws bringing within the operation of a bankrupt law all classes of debtors. The parliament did only bring within the scope of those laws a certain class of debtors; but for years, particularly in modern times, they have gone on from period to period to modify the laws so as to bring within their operation almost all the people of the kingdom who become debt ors and innocently unable to pay their debts.