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tion of rights of the people and the provisions of magna charta.— The oppression and distress which ensued, and increased, and which was manifested in all its multiform iniquity, again moved public opinion and the feelings of humanity, in behalf of the wretched victims of abused and unhallowed power, and in pursuance of which the reigning sovereign was induced to interpose the before quoted statute, 8th Eliz. to punish those, who, as that law stated, "of their malicious minds, and without any just cause, procured their fellow subjects to be greatly molested and troubled by attachments and arrests of their bodies" for debt, or merely on allegation or pretence of debt. This statute not being sufficiently effective to prevent the complicated and accumulating evils of imprisonment for debt, the dictates of humanity and publie opinion co-operated to induce another effort to attain the object which the statute just mentioned failed to effect. "Enormous," says Burges, " as was the grievance for which a remedy was proposed by the preceding act, it was but a part of the mischiefs which arose from this oppressive practice, and, consequently, the wholesome operation of the sta tute, 8 Eliz. c. 2, was extremely ciscumscribed, and confined to a few of the unhappy sufferers. The jails became daily more crowded with prisoners; the cries of the unhappy still were heard, for the miseries of the people still continued unrelieved. The cries ascended even to the throne: and the monarch was moved to pity. the calamities of her subjects, to restore to freedom and to happiness the honest and industrious. And on the 20th day of April, 1585, she issued her proclamation, and authorized certain commissioners therein mentioned, "to order and compound controversies and causes between prisoners and their creditors, and others" (who were in reality not creditors) "by whom they were detained, or in execution."

This proclamation was the incipient measure which led to the numerous bankrupt and insolvent laws which from time to time have been interposed in favor of the poor and honest debtor: and they furnish conclusive proof of the continued evil operation of the law they were intended to counteract. Although their influence tended to diminish some of the miseries consequent on the law of imprisonment for debt; still the lamentable condition of debtors' jails-the numerous tenantry of those abodes of the wretchedthe vices and habits which too often are engendered by tribulation and idleness among the inmates of those mansions of injustice and oppression-the distress of their families and the grief of their

friends, all conspired to prove the insufficiency of insolvent laws as preventives to the unjust exercise of irresponsible power, or as remedies for the evils necessarily connected with, and flowing from imprisonment for debt. "Public opinion," therefore, "and the lenity of our fellow-citizens," (to use the language of the memorialists,) "again interposed in behalf of honest, poor and industrious debtors," and induced the Legislature on the 21st day of April, 1831, to lay the axe at the root of the evil, and by the law abolishing imprisonment for debt, totally to divest of power those who could not discriminate between the honest and the dishonest, or who, stimulated by interest, disappointment and passion, would not make any just distinction between debtors who could not and those who would not pay their debts.

And now the Legislature are asked to repeal the existing law, and again to subject the fraudulent and the honest to one common law, thereby in effect to encourage fraud, by thus breaking down the partition wall between vice and virtue.

Shall we be told that "creditors do not desire to imprison the poor and honest." Those acquainted with the history of imprisonment for debt for six hundred years past, and who are aware of the inducements which that law holds out to creditors to imprison debtors, honest and dishonest, with a view to speculate on the grief and the sympathies of their friends, by which to extort money from the pockets of those who owe them nothing, well know what little value can be attached to the remark above mentioned. Besides, if creditors do not wish to imprison the poor and honest debtor, why ask for power to do so, and why make such strenuous exertions to obtain it? What good use would there be in giving power to those who do not mean to exercise it? And where the legislative wisdom in giving power to those who, because they admit the use of it to be unjust, disclaim the intention of using it?

Although your committee do not believe that the Legislature will attempt to disturb the principle of the existing law, it will not be deemed out of order to offer some additional observations in confirmation of the foregoing proofs, that to repeal the present law, and leaving in force the law of imprisonment for debt, would be, as it always has been, a violation of the unalienable rights of personal liberty, and also of those provisions of the Constitution, which were intended to protect and preserve them.

Before Magna Charta, the British kings, who were, as now, re. garded as the sovereign source of political authority in England, exercised the uncontrolled, arbitrary and irresponsible power over the lives and liberties of their subjects. The possession and exercise of such power constitutes the monarch an absolute despot, and his government an absolute despotism. It was the tyrannical exercise of this power, in violation of the unalienable rights of life and liberty, which caused the barons and the common people, who were alike the subjects and victims of it, to unite in opposition to the king, and obliged him to relinquish the power in question. The record containing the written agreement of the sovereign to abandon the exercise of the power in question, and which was intended to perpetuate the proof of that truth, is known as Magna Charta: which among other things provides that "no person shall be deprived of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; that no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on presentment or indictment of a grand jury," the "due process of law" in criminal cases; that "no person shall be disfranchised or deprived of any of his rights and pri vileges, unless by the law of the land or judgment of his peers," that is, by virtue of a constitutional law, and the verdict of a jury: and hence, not by the caprice, or at the pleasure of a king or a creditor.

Now, the People, who are the sovereign source of political power in our country, have caused those provisions of Magna Charta to be incorporated in the Constitution of this State; and that too, for the very purpose of interdicting the exercise of despotic and arbitrary power by any branch of our government, over the una lienable rights of life and personal liberty. And although the right of personal liberty were, as before mentioned, violated by the judiciary courts, and in process of time acquiesced in by other departments of the government of Britain, that wrong is no sufficient authority for the existence of the law of imprisonment for debt in this State; inasmuch as the Constitution, when providing for the adoption of some of the laws of England, expressly abrogated and rejected all such as were repugnant to the Constitution; and hence the law of imprisonment for debt never had any legitimate existence in this State, and never can have any constitutional authority while the above quoted provisions of that instrument shall remain, and remain inviolable.

And here your committee will ask, would the Legislature listen one moment to a proposition, couched in express terms, to violate the provisions of the Constitution, or to nullify that palladium of the rights and liberties of their constituents, however many of them might by memorials advocate such measures? Would the Legislature halt one instant in rejecting a proposal to vest the State Executive with the power to imprison at his pleasure any citizen, however frce from guile, or however guilty, without any proof of its existence? Would the Legislature ever seriously entertain a thought to give to any individuals who may happen to lose their property by means of theft or robbery, the power to imprison the criminal at their pleasure, and without proof of guilt? Would they ever think of vesting the government, or any department or officer in it, with power to punish for murder, treason, or any other criminal offence, without presentment or indictment of a grand jury-without trial-without proof-without the verdict of a petit jury, or judgment of conviction for the alleged or imputed crime? And will not the same provisions of the Constitution-the same "law of the land"-the same rules of common justice, and the same principles of morality which interdict the grant of such power to the government, or to any public functionary, also equally forbid any legislative grant of such unhallowed power to any individuals, or any class of the community?

If to exercise, at pleasure, absolute and irresponsible power, constitutes a king a despot, the like power, vested in a Governor, would attach to him the same character. A government exercising such despotic power would be any thing but democratic or republican: and to vest such power in creditors, without regard to their intelligence, discretion, humanity or honesty, would be still more odious, inasmuch as it would, in effect, be creating petty despots in every town and village rum-hole in the State; and thus to scatter despotism and misery throughout the land.

Would the Legislature manifest much wisdom, were they to confer office and power indiscriminately on the honest and the dishonest, the intelligent and the ignorant? Ought they not to inquire into the character and capacity of those whom they contemplate to vest even with legitimate and limited power, and who are to be held responsible for the just and discreet exercise of it, and the faithful discharge of their official duties? Do they not inquire, in reference to the proposed incumbent, "is he honest, is he

capable?" And if deficient, in either qualification, would it be wise or just to entrust him with office or with power? Would the Legislature be willing, in express terms, to give to creditors, without regard to their honesty, discretion or humanity, or in the admitted absence of all these qualities, the arbitrary and irresponsible power to imprison, at their pleasure, poor and honest debtors? Would the Legislature be willing to take the responsibility to give, in express terms, to honest and dishonest creditors, the power to imprison, at their pleasure, even fraudulent debtors, without proof that they are so, or without trial to ascertain their guilt, or any chance to prove their innocence; or to defend themselves against the charge of crime? Would the Legislature, by a particular enactment, authorise in express terms, a fraudulent debtor, who may happen also to be a creditor, to imprison his debtor, honest or dishonest, without proof, or even the pretence of fraud? Would the Legislature, by a separate statute for such purpose, declare, in express terms, that all their constituents should be liable to be deprived of their personal liberty for debt, at the pleasure of any plaintiff, whose oath would not be taken for the value of one cent in proof of his alleged demand? Would the Legislature be willing to enact a law authorising in express terms, murderers, thieves, robbers, perjured villains, State prison and penitentiary convicts, who have served their time out, or have escaped from prison or who have got their pardons in their pockets, to imprison, at their pleasure, all their debtors, honest and dishonest, in all cases, without either proof of debt or fraud? And was not such the law of imprisonment for debt: and would not the repeal of the existing law be tantamount to express enactments, conferring the odious and depotic powers in the cases just mentioned; and thus be, indirectly vesting the same powers, and producing the same consequences, as if specially authorised by separate and express enactments? Surely the blood and treasure of the revolution must have been worse than wasted, and the constitution of the political government of this State, intended to protect inviolate the unalienable rights of the people, must have been a work of useless labor, when laws can be enacted, by which the unalienable rights of personal liberty shall be held on the tenure of the pleasure or caprice of every man, honest and dishonest, who may happen, by any means, to become a creditor. And any laws which produce such result, are no better than those would be if enacted for such unhallowed purposes.

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