Mr. POLAND. Mr. President, I had not intended to say anything more in reference to this question than I said yesterday and some 2 weeks ago, when this subject was up before. Notwithstanding theingenious manner in which this subject has been Presented by my friends, the Senfrom NewYork and the Senfrom Connecticut, I am still quite unconvinced that it is necessary to strike out this portion of the bill as it passed the House in order to make this a uniform bankrupt law. I confess that were it not for the very confident manner in which these gentlemen and other. members of the Senate, whose opinions are legal subjects, have declared their opinion that of the different States renders this law open to the objection that it is not uniform, I should have felt that the objection was entirely frivolous. I think, if it were in our power, if it were possible for us to adopt the systems of the different States in relation to the exemptions in favor of poor debtors, every member of the Senate would say that as a matter of discretion, as a matter of judgment, as a matter of prudence, as a matter of safe and proper legislation it was better to leave that subject to be regulated by the State legislatures, who know the circumstances, the wants, the condition of all their inhabitants, rich and poor, better than we can. All would agree. that it had better be left to them to say what mercy should be shown to the poor debtor, how the balance should be struck between the creditor and the debtor in their respective localities, than we can determine here in this senate Chamber. This is not the objection; it is that under the Constitution we have not the power; that if we leave any exemptions at all in favor of the debtors who either voluntarily go into this system for the purpose of becoming relieved to their debts or are driven into it by their creditors, if anything is to be left to them that does not go into their assets for division among thes creditors, if anything is to be doled out to the so or retained to them out of their property 47 o must be by some uniform rule that must & written down in the law itself. Mr. President, it seems to me that this is necessary in order to make this a uniform s tem of bankruptcy. All the States have preemption laws, and they are different in th r ‘. terms. Some exempt a greater amount of re estate than others; a greater amount of personal property is exempted in some States th 2 o in others; but all the States have laws on t subject. They have regulated it accordin their own judgment. They say that a debtao f may, for his own subsistence and for his family, retain a certain amount of property that shall not be liable to be taken by any legal process for payment of his debts. No question is raised here, none ever has been raised, but that those State laws are entirely constitutional. It has been decided over and over again that the States may make additional exemptions of property as against debts that were already in existence in the time. So no question arises but what the State laws, providing that certain property may be retained by debtors against their creditors, are valid and constitutional and binding. Now, what does this bill propose to do, as the House passed it? We propose simply to get u a law and adapt legal machinery to it, by which all the property of every bankrupt throughout the U.S. that is liable for the payment of his debts may be taken and administered and distributed equally among the creditors. This is all this amounts to. If there were no exemptions by State laws and we were to make an exemption; if by existing laws all the property of every debtor throughout the country was liable for the payment of i. debts and we were to undertake to establish a system of administration throughout the entire country, I should agree I think that we must make an exemption that should be uniform in all the States; but that is not what we attempt to do. By this bill we lay hold of, we seize all the property of every bankrupt that is liable for the payment of his debts by law, against which the creditors have any right to proceed by any process in the State courts, or in the U.S. courts; and we say that all that property shall be taken and be distributed in a particular way equally among all the creditors. Is not that uniform? In order to comply with this requirement of the Constitution, to have the system of bankruptcy uniform, is it necessary i. it must operate in every State precisely alike? Are there not a great variety of contracts that are binding and legal and valid and hold a man's property in one State that would be entirely invalid and ine perative to hold his property in another State? But it may be said that this proves nothing, because a contract valid by the laws of the State where made must be valid everywhere. But under the bankrupt law of 1841 the question arose in relation to statute liens. I mentioned the other day the controversy that arose in NewEngland, beginning between Judge Story and Judge Parker, who was then chief justice of NewHampshire, in relation to our NewEng land attachment liens; I believe they are not known, out of NewEngland, in any part of the U.S. as an ordinary process. With us in NewEngland when a man brings an action for the collection of a debt, if he can find property of the debtor, he sends out the sheriff and seizes it upon the writ in advance of any judgment, without filing any affidavit that the party is going to abscond or has property concealed. It is a matter of right with him. The bankrupt law of 1841 provided that liens upon property should be saved from the operation of the bankrupt law. The question arose whether these statute liens in NewEng land came within the meaning of the bankrupt law, and it was eventually settled that they. they were sustained. It was utterly impossible that any such lien could exist in any State out of NewEngland wnder any State law; there were no such liens Rooperty elsewhere. If the bankrupt law S$ o protected those liens upon property in. o it established a rufe for New in a was different from that established State, and saved a kind of claims." Property which in any other state ja ". exist; and to y r State conat were e ese were not like contracts would. "red into in one State which o good 6 are nowhere, because these could or effect out of the State, could Prem oin any other place. And yet that the SCOTUS held bankrupt onion of the State liens by that " did not render it liable to the objection of want of uniformity in the constitutional sense. I do not desire to enter into any extended discussion. Enough has been said by other Senators in relation to this question, so that it is understood in all its bearings: and it seems to me that it is entirely clear that the adoption of these different homestead exemptions of the different States does not prevent the law from being uniform in a legal sense. I might say that when the bankrupt law of 1841 was under discussion in Congress an amendment was adopted in the House by a very considerable majority embodying the very provision that is contained in this bill, and that amendment was moved by a member of Congress who is now one of the judges of the SCOTUS Eventually that amendment was struck out by a small majority, but it was at one time adopted, and adopted upon the motion of a gentleman who is now one of the judges of the SCOTUS