Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, there can be no doubt as to the authority of Congress to pass a bankrupt law, the power to do so being in so many words conferred upon Congress; and I do not understand as far as the debate has gone, that the bill itself is objected to upon any ground of expediency. In the Present condition of the country, growing out of the troubles in which we have been involved, it has seemed to me from the 1st not only important but actually humane to provide a system of bankruptcy. I do not know what are the debts now due by those who are unable to pay in that part of the country where for the most part debtors are to be found: the debts no doubt are so heavy and the debtors are to be found in almost every portion of the country, that it will be impossible for them to exercise their industry or have any motive to exercise their industry or engage in any enterprise if everything they may earn can be seized at once and they be forced to poverty again. The only doubt, therefore, as far as the debate has gone, as to the propriety of passing this bill is because of the provision.". 14th section which the JtCommittee have reported should be stricken out. As the Senate, I believe, are already advised, the members of the committee were not all of them of that opinion. I was one of the minority, and I will state now very briefly the ground upon which I supposed the section to be constitutional. The word “laws” as found in the clause is evidently meant as synonymous with the word “rule, ” as found in the same clause in relation to naturalization. Congress is authorized “to establish a uniform rule of naturalization and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcy.” If the “rule” in the 1st case is to operate everywhere in the same way, that is to say if the rule is the same, the uniformity contemplated by the Constitution in relation to naturalization is accomplished; and for the same reason if the bankrupt law which Congress may pass operates alike as a law every where throughout the U.S., the uniformity contemplated by the provision is accomplished. The objection stated by my friend, the chair man of the committee, [Mr. TRUMBULL] and the honorable member from Indiana, [Mr. HENDR1cks,) that the particular provision shows that the law itself will not be uniform in the sense of the constitutional clause, is not that it is not the same law in each State of the Union if it shall pass, but because what may be recovered under it in one State will not be what may be recovered under it in another State. In the same section and I do not understand the ComJudiciary or the chairman as finding any fault with that provision; certainly they have not recommended any change in that particular in the same section which excepts from the operation of the bankrupt act property which is reserved by the laws of the States there are other exceptions which are to remain. There are 2 classes: the 1st class embraces property which the circumstances of the bankrupt may, in the judgment of the commissioner or of the district court, justify being retained by him. The decisions in relation to bankrupts under that clause by the commissioner may lead to different results. One amount may be allowed to one bankrupt because of his circumstances and the condition in which he is placed, and another amount may be allowed to another bankrupt because his condition and his circumstances are not the same; so that the bill in that clause of it goes upon the assumption that there may be a different result in the case of different applicants for the bankrupt law, or different parties against whom the bankrupt law may be put in operation by compulsion. But that is not all. It excepts from the operation of the bankruptcy all property belonging to the bankrupt which he holds under any act of Congress, or rather which by any act of Congress is excepted from execution. Then my friend here holds property and it is immaterial what the property may be, for an act of Congress may exempt any property they think proper he owns property which is exempted from execution under an act of Congress; he lives alongside of me; that property of his cannot be taken. I own property not greater in point of value which the exception does not embrace; my property can be taken. Property is excepted by act of Congress from seizure for debt in the State of Michigan, and there happens to be no such property within the limits of the State of Maryland. All the property that the Maryland debtors held can be taken, but the property which the Michigan debtors held. iP it be property covered by the exception, cannot be taken; so that the law in that particular operates one way practically in ot and another way practically in Maryland. That is to say, the Michigan debtor continues, notwithstanding his bankruptcy, the owner of his property; the Maryland debtor is not the owner because it is not excepted by the act of Congress. Before the decision in the case of Sturgis vs. Crowninshield, reported in 4 Wheaton, it was a very general opinion that the States had the authority to pass bankrupt laws, or at least insolvent laws that might result in the same way. It was not until that decision that it was decided that the right of the States to pass laws of that kind was disputed. In the subsequent case of Ogden vs. Saunders, reported in 12 Wheaton, another question arose. The case of Sturgis vs. Crowninshield was decided on the ground that an insolvent law of a State freeing the debtor from all his debts was invalid because of the inhibition in the Constitution of the U.S. against a State passing laws impairing the obligation of contracts. The court held in that case that the States might pass laws which would affect the remedy, and as under the laws as they existed in the States or in the U.S. one of the remedies left to the creditor to enforce the collection of his debt as against the debtor was imprisonment; they could pass a law relieving a debtor from imprisonment, but they could not pass a law relieving him from the obligation to pay the debts or discharging from liability because of that obligation any property that he might thereafter acquire. In the 2nd case the question was Presented whether a State law which discharged a debtor from all obligation, for his debts was valid as between himself and a citizen creditor upon a debt contracted subsequent to the passage of the State law; and the Supreme Court i. by a majority that such a law would be valid; and they further decided in deciding that case that there was nothing to prohibit a State from passing a bankrupt law or an insolvent law in the mere existence of the power conferred upon Congress on the subject until Congress should exercise the power, and then that the State law would be valid unless it was found actually to conflict with the provisions of the bankrupt law of the U.S. Now, Mr. President, I will not state as strongly as I should otherwise have done that, in my judgment, the objection is wholly unfounded, constitutionally, because the honorable chairman and those who concurred with him upon the committee think that it is a very clear and well founded objection; but for the soul of me, irrespective of that authority, I cannot imagine what charge of want of uniformity there is in a law which operates as a law alike in every State in the Union. The law in Maryland is, that whatever is exempted by her own laws from execution is to be exempt. The law in Maine is, that whatever is exempted, if she has an exemption law in that State, is to be exempted from the operation of this law. It operates alike. It does not exempt property to the like amount; but it operates as a law equally in the one State as in the other. Now, su. that in point of fact and that is a way, ink, to test it there were exemption laws in every State, and the amount of the exemption was precisely the same in each State, and this law proposed to give the benefitof that exemption to all the bankrupts, would it not be uniform” It would be uniform, then, because it would operate alike every where in one respect; it would save from excution property of a like amount in oach State. But the idea is that if there happens to be a difference in the amount of property which the States have respectively exempted from taxation that of itself shows, if we retain this clause, that the law will not operate uniformly. Now, Mr. President, the whole effect, as I think, of the bill is this: the creditors now of these bankrupts are prohibited from making their debts out of a certain description of property; that is all. They have no relief, therefore, any where, for these exemption laws have been recognized as constitutional, and being constitutional the only way in which they can be avoided, if they can be avoided at all, is to strike at them by means of a bankrupt law, and that we cannot do unless we desire to appropriate to the payment of. debts is not liable to the payment of debts under the existing State laws, unless we place in the hands of the creditor property belonging to his debtor to which now he has no recourse, being protected by the State laws. The whole effect, therefore, of this provision is, that we give to the creditor all that the creditor can obtain; and as I said, and for the same reason, the operation of the law is everywhere the same.