Mr. JOHNSON. If I understand the amendment proposed by the Senfrom Massachu. setts, it is that no party shall have the benefit of the bankrupt act who is now actually bankrupt, unless he shall be able to show assets to the amount of 50 cents on the dollar upon his whole indebtedness. The effect of that amendment, as I think the honorable member will see when he reflects more maturely upon it, would be to deprive of the benefit of this law perhaps nearly half, if not more, of those who stand very much in need of this relief. The honorable member tells us that a provision of the same kind is found in the insolvent laws of Massachusetts. I suppose in that he is right; and as these laws have been in force for many years as far as relates to all who could be benefited by a discharge under those laws, he thinks the amendment which he proposes would have no deleterious operation. But the honorable member knows that the Supreme Court have decided, and that is considered now as the settled doctrine on the subject, that the insol vent laws of the States have no operation to free the citizens of those States from the obligation to pay any debts which they may owe to the citizens of other States. And the result is that even the people of Massachusetts who may be unfortunately bankrupt, as well as the people of the other States who are in that situation, are not now, and have not been since the repeal of the last bankrupt act, able to free themselves from the embarrassments of their debts. In the absence of the bankrupt law, therefore, those debtors who are honest (for the law is intended only to apply to them) have exhausted all their assets, o they could not be relieved from their debts by surrendering what they had at the moment they ascertained they became bankrupt; there being no law in force by which they could be relieved to that extent, they have lived on hoping often against hope until they are without anything. And independent of that, the civil troubles to which we have been subjected, and which have more or less had an effect upon commercial men, and upon all other men, have been such as at once in many cases to sweep away from them all their assets so that they are hope lessly insolvent. Now, all that the House proposed was to require a debtor to show as sets to the amount of 50 cents on the dollar who may apply for the benefit of this statute after the expiration of a eertain period, I think, and not from the passage of the aet. The object of that provision is very apparent. If at the time of the passage of the act, when he can be relieved, he is in the possession of assets which would go to discharge in whole or in part his debts, although he finds that he may not be able to go on so as to save anything for himself after discharging his debts, and he refuses to apply until he has exhausted all his assets, there may be some reason in requiring of him the possession of as sets to the extent of 50 cents on the dollar, or any other amount before he shall have the benefit of this law; but what is to become of the almost innumerable number of men who are now unable to pay their debts and unable to show any assets? The honorable member can not, I am sure, fail to be aware that whatever may be the condition of Massachusetts debtors of. husetts men in the South, whatever their condition was before the war commenced, every thing has been swept away. I suppose there is no debtor in the South who would be able to show assets to the amount of 50 cents on the dollar if he was in debt an amount. Those who have been trading. Massachusetts and trading with the other At lantic States in mercantile business have had taken from them, by means of the war, in consequence of the war, all the assets they had. One of the objects of this bill is to prowide for that class of citizens as well as to vide for the class of citizens who have me unfortunately bankrupt in our own States. o The view of the committee, however, was that, looking to the purpose of an act of this description, looking to what we supposed was the policy that ought to be pursued in reference to such cases, it was not advisable to include in the law any such limitation. I know it may be said that it is one of the means by which frauds to any extent may be prevented. But no party is entitled to the benefit of this act unless he can show that he has been perfectly innocent of all fraud. The objection to the provision is as it came from the House, and it applies with still more force to the amendment of that provision suggested by the honorable member from Massachusetts, that it makes the absence of assets to the extent of 50 cents on the dollar conclusive evidence against the debtor. Why should that be so? How many of the merchants of the land and the business men of the country, to say nothing of the South, from time to time have embarked in enterprises depending for their success upon the honesty of others, an amount which if lost would reduce their assets to less than 50 cents on the dollar? Are they to be denied the privilege of the law” Are they to be stricken down hopelessly, having no means at all of laboring successfully for the support even of their own families, and still less of laboring so as to increase the wealth of the country? It will be so if this passes; and the committee were of opinion and in that opinion, I believe I may say, if it is proper to refer to such a subject at all, there was perfect unanimity that it was a sufficient guard against any improper appropriation of assets after an act of bankruptcy committed or after the fact of bankruptcy became known to the debtor, to provide. he should not be entitled to a discharge unless he was able to show that he had acted fairly. Innocent mistake we thought ought not to involve him in hopeless misery, to use a term not at all too strong for the condition in which a hopeless bankrupt is placed, with his wife and children around him, dependent not only for education, but even for maintenance upon his being able to provide the means by which both are to be obtained or acquired. We thought and in that particular we acted in accordance with nearly all the laws to be found on the continent of Europe and in England that innocent bankruptcy was no crime, and that in the absence of crime it was fit and proper that every man should be made a freeman absolute, a freeman discharged from the thralldom of debt, a freeman discharged from the thralldom of laws which enforced may make a slave of a freeman. The honorable member from Massachusetts and others who are upon this floor and in that opinion I concurred thought that the institution of human slavery was abhorrent, not only to all ideas of justice, but to all ideas of humanity, and that it should be at once put an end to. They thought evidently the i. day, as that opinion was indicated in the debates, that the laws to be found in the statutes of some of the States authorizing the sale, even for crime, of any individual, were abhorrent to all the modern notions of humanity. And yet, Mr. President, can anyone imagine a slavery more absolute and more heart rending, a slavery that more effectually strikes at human energy, than that which, although not existing in the walls of a penitentiary or of a jail, a man sees in his own household in the utter hopelessness with which his wife and his children from day to day live, with no expectation of being relieved from the slavery of debt in the absence of a law of this description? And all that the law prooses is, that he who is in that condition of fon thralldom shall be permitted to escape from it and be again a man, if he has inno cently been brought to that condition. I hope, Mr. President, the amendment will not prevail, and that the bill as it came from the House in that particular section will be altered by striking out the clause which the committee have moved to strike out.