Mr. HOWARD. If this clause shall be stricken out, then it will follow that all the exemption laws of the several States and every clause of every State constitution which secures an exemption from seizure of the property of a debtor on final process, will, if the construction given it by the ComJudiciary be sound, be ipso facto repealed. In o State we have settled and fixed the right of the owner of property to an exemption from final process by incorporating it in the constitution itself of the State. The people of that State have inserted in their fundamental law a provision that “The personal property of every resident of State, this to consist of such, property, only as shall be designatedby law, shall be exempted to the amount of not less than $500from sale on execution or final process of any court, issued for the colleoctthioenr of anydebt contracted after the adoption of this constitution.” The exemption of personal property cannot be less in value than $500 under the constitution of the State. Again, the constitution declares: “Every homestead of not exceeding 40 acres of land, and the dwelling house thereon, and the appur tenances, to be selected by the owner thereof, and not included in any town, plat, city, or village; or instead thereof, at the option of in any city. village, or recorded ttohwenowpnlaetr, any lot or such parts of lots as shall be equal thereto, and the dwell:ing house thereon, andits appurtenances, ownedand 9ccupied by any resident of the State, not exceeding in value $1,500, shall be exempt from forcedsale on execution or any other, final processfrom a court, for any debt contracted after the adoption of constitution. exemption this shall not extend to any mortgage thereon lawfully obtained, but such mortgage or other alienation of such land, by the owner thereof, if a without the signaturm eaorfrtiehdewmifaent, oshthaell snaomt eb.e”valid So that as to the homestead in my State it cannot be mortgaged or in any way alienated by the husband who is the owner of the land during the life of his wife without her consent; and the same constitution provides that this homestead shall not be sold for the payment of the debts of the deceased until after all his children shall have become of age. We have laid this principle of a reasonable, fair exemption from sale upon execution deep in the foundations of society. Now, sir, I cannot consent to disturb that arrangement. I Presume that similar provisions are in force in other States. I hold it to be the right of each State, in the exercise of its constitutional authority, to regulate all these matters of domestic, internal police, and that Congress have no power whatever to interfere or disturb them. I would not attempt it. I cannot therefore vote to strike out this clause of the bill, because it would stand as an evi ‘dence that I had yielded my opinion upon the effect of the constitution and upon the rights of the several States. I do not wish to invite a multitude of law suits to test the question in every case where a bankrupt is proceeding to obtain the benefit of the act; and such will be one of the direct consequences of striking out this clause. You will invite innumerable law suits, controversies between creditors and the wives and children of bankrupts; and my prediction is, that if this clause shall be stricken out, the law will in the course of 5 years, if it shall last so long, be as odious to the community generally as any act ever passed by Congress. Mr. President, I remember quite well how great a clamor was raised for the passage of the bankrupt act in 1841. Congress, yielding to what they supposed to be the honest desires of the people, enacted a bankrupt law. My friendfrom Indiana [Mr. LANE] will recollect it very well. We were both Present in the other House and voted for it; and within about one year from the time we enacted that law the same Congress repealed it. It is possible this bill may be an improvement upon the act of 1841; but my own experience under that act was such, in the course of my professional practice, as to create in my mind a very strong distrust of the value of any general bankrupt law that could be passed by Congress. I do not say that I shall vote against the Present bill should the Senate not strike out this clause and should they retain another clause which I propose to strike out when we reach it. We ought to move carefully. There is no commercial interest in this country that is not to be affected by it if it shall become a law. There is not a family in the land, nor an indi: vidual, who will not in some degree feel it, and in uncounted cases feel it most sensibly and deeply. I hope, sir, this clause will be retained. Let us endeavor to Preserve to the citizens of the various States some little vestige of the privileges and immunities which their own State Legislatures and people have seen fit to grant them, and do not let us throw the whole 3roperty of the debtor class throughout the U.S. into the immense vortexof bankruptcy, to be administered upon, and, in most cases, as it will turn out, utterly wasted and destroyed in the course of the proceeding.