Mr. FOGG. A single word more. I cannot feel that the question of power is exactly as the Senfrom Moi supposes, that this Congress has the same power as the parliament of GreatBritain. You know, sir, it is an adage as old as the British constitution itself that Parliament is almighty, is omnipo tent. Parliament may do what it will; but we are a Government of limited powers, with a written Constitution. The powers of Congress are limited by that written Constitution. The honorable Senator well knows, although the question has been adjudicated otherwise as I iackn.owledge, that the best, the wisest, the men this nation has produced have doubted the power of Congress, under a general act co a uniform system of bankruptcy, to make that system apply to debts already existing. It has been contended by the ablest of our jurists and the ablest of our statesmen that Congress had no such power; that the exercise of that power would be the exercise of an expostfacto power, and the enactment of such a law would be the enactment of an expostfacto law. I am aware, as I have said, that our courts have adjudicated otherwise, and therefore I do not propose to raise that question; but I do say that the fact that the British Parliament may wipe out every debt in the whole empire of GreatBritain does i. prove that the American Congress may do that. But, sir, to return to the question immediately involved in my amendment, what does it propose? It proposes that in relation to i. all contracted prior to the passage of this act no discharge of the debtor shall be granted except upon the written assent of 3/4ths of his creditors. Is not that a reasonable proposition? Is that a great concession to the moral element in this country that does not believe in repudiating anything? I do not think that I called this repudiation before; but I did say that among the great masses of our honest people, among our farmers all over the land, among our hard working mechanics, it would be regarded and it would be denounced as a repudiating act. I do say so; I know it, sir. I know that the very word “bankrupt” is an odious word among the masses of our people of our honest men out of the commercia circles everywhere. Now, in relation to the hardship of this matter, I have had some experience in my intercourse with men who have been unfortu nately in debt and who have been unfortu nately reduced to bankruptcy, and my expe rience has been that while there is here and there among creditors a Shylock, who would take not only the flesh, but the bones and the blood of his debtors, yet Shylocks are not the ordinary rule among creditors far from it. I do not recollect in all my experience a case where an honest, honorable merchant, or an honest, honorable tradesman, who by misfor tune had been reduced into a position where he was unable to pay his debts, has been oppressed by the persistent cruelty of a majority or 1/2 or one quarter of his creditors. Occasionally, as I have said, there is a cred itor who is a Shylock, who would take every thing the debtor had and perhaps incarcerate him in prison for life; but no man has among his creditors one 4th of the number who are of that character. I repeat I have never known a case where an honest upright debtor, who had been reduced to penury by misfor tune and was unable to pay .could not get 3/4ths of his creditors, especially when he surrendered all he had to i.to grant him a free discharge. I offer this amendment because I think it will remove a great portion of the odium which I am sure. to this bill everywhere when you get out of the commercial communities. Everywhere among the honest yeomanry of the land, you will that this bill will be regarded as a bill repudiating honest debts, enabling dishonest debtors to shake off their responsibilities, and compelling honest credit ors to lose the earnings of their life time.