CITY OF NEW YORK, April 3, 1786. Present-Governor Clinton; Livingston, Chancellor; Morris, Chief Justice; Hobart, Justice.

A bill entitled "An act for the relief of creditors against heirs, devisees, executors and administrators, and for proving wills respecting real estate," was before the Council. Chief Justice Morris reported

the following objections, viz.:

For that by the first, second, third, fourth and fifth sections of it, subjecting the heirs and devisees to suits for the payment of the debts of their testator or intestate in all cases whatsoever, it is inconsistent with the public good.

1. Because by a collusion between the creditor and the executors or administrators, the personal estate in their hands, though sufficient for payment of the debts, may be wasted, and the heirs and devisees liable to the payment of the debts; for if a man dies intestate, leaving three children, infants, one by the first venter, two by a second, his second wife living, who will of course administer, she, with a view to serve her own children, to the prejudice of the child by the first venter, may pretend that there is little or no personal estate. The creditors, perhaps, to save themselves trouble, or with design to serve the widow and her children, knowing that the real estate that descends to the child by the first venter, is sufficient to secure them eventually, rest easy; and on the coming of this child to age, when the administratrix may be deceased, and the personal estate of the ancestor so wasted and disposed of that it cannot be come at, suits are brought against the first child, and all the real property is taken to pay the debts of the ancestor, which should have been paid by the administratrix, such child never having been in a capacity to guard against the evil.

2. Because, from the words, "who hath already died," in the first section, the bill retrospects, and may, in favor of some creditor who has not been as watchful as he should have been, ruin persons whose estate have been long since aliened.

3. Because, by the sixth, seventh and eighth sections of the said bill, a remedy is in future provided for the evils intended to be remedied, by the first, second, third, fourth and fifth sections, and therefore those sections are so far useless.

4. Because the sixth, seventh and eighth sections of the said bill are not only inconsistent with the public good, but against the spirit of the Constitution; for by the said sections a power is vested in the Judge of the Court of Probates, upon the suggestion of executors or administrators (who may be interested on a devastavit), to order a hearing before himself; and upon such hearing (without appeal) to order the sale of real estate; thereby depriving persons to whom such real estate is devised, or to whom it may descend, and who, in most instances, will be infants (the guard of whose interest has ever been a favorite object of our law), of their property, without trial by jury, and in the case of infants frequently without defense; thus instituting a new court, and vesting the Judge of the Court of Probates with new powers unknown to the Constitution, and which are to be exercised not according to the course of the common law.

CITY OF NEW YORK, April 13, 1786. Present-Governor Clinton; Livingston, Chancellor; Morris, Chief Justice; Yates, Justice.

A bill entitled "An act for emitting the sum of £200,000, for the purposes therein mentioned," was before the Council. Chancellor Livingston reported the following objections, viz.:

Because, though a trading nation that receives a balance in specie, may, by the strictest and most attentive observance of public faith for a long series of years, support a limited paper emission, no such credit can be obtained by a nation that pays an annual balance. While paper circulates, it will purchase specie, and in proportion as it serves the purposes of a medium for the internal commerce, exchange and produce of the country will rise, and specie be emitted, till its scarcity enhances its price in paper, or in other words, till the real sinks below the nominal value. Thus, under circumstances similar to ours, an emission of paper; instead of increasing, will diminish the circulating medium; for as the money of a country represents its produce, so credit represents the specie of the country, and can only exist while one may, without difficulty, command the other. If the quantity of pro

duce diminishes, money, the representative of it, depreciates; so if specie is either sent abroad or locked up, paper can only represent that which remains; and as the effect of paper, when the balance is against a country, is to drain it of its specie, its own value is daily diminishing, and with it the common medium of trade.

Because, whenever the bills of credit depreciate, the State is defrauded of its revenues, individuals of their debts, commerce languishes, or, instead of producing wealth, is the parent of want, till the State becomes bankrupt, and, after long struggles and much private and public distress, learns this useful lesson, that a medium of trade can only be procured by selling more than we buy; that this can be brought about but by industry and economy, by working cheaper than those with whom we deal, and not by laws that foster the idleness and dissipation which a long war has created.

Because the bill, under the appearance of relieving the distress of debtors, will in fact add to it. It does not enable them to discharge their debts unless their creditors commence suits. Thus, old debts will therefore accumulate by the annual addition of interest; and if the bills for which they mortgage their property depreciate, they will get into the hands of a few persons who can command specie; and when the day of payment arrives, the mortgagor will not only be compelled to discharge his original debt in specie but the amount of the bills of credit, and that, after having probably incurred considerable loss in passing them.

Because, however paper may be funded, its credit (supposing the causes before mentioned not to operate against it) must ultimately depend upon that of the government which can divert, with the same facility that it can create a fund; that to issue bills, and by the same law to declare that new promises shall be paid for old debts, and that the interest of the first lender shall be postponed to that of the last borrower, though the first has much and the last no peculiar merit to plead, is in the same instant to solicit and to destroy credit.

Because, by the fifty-second clause of the bill, certificates are to be given for the remaining four-fifths of the interest due on certificates loaned to the State, on or before the first day of May, which will be in the year 1787; when, agreeably to the calcula

tions on which £50,000 are appropriated for the payment of the interest due on the 1st January, 1785, the remaining four-fifths must exceed £200,000. As no provision has been made for raising any part of this large sum, nor is it probable that in the course of one year, besides providing for the support of our own and the Federal Government, so large a sum can possibly be raised, particularly after the appropriations that have been made for the redemption of the new emission, it must be apparent that one of the most important engagements it contains will not be complied with, an observation that gives more weight to the last objection.

Because, by rendering the bills of credit receivable at the treasury for the most productive revenues of the State, it leaves us without other means of complying with federal requisitions, than by a collection of some of the taxes or debts of the State in specie: and yet no such determination can be made without depreciating the paper and establishing different rules for the discharge of debts due to private persons and the public; so that, should the bill be enacted into a law, it will leave no other alternative but that of violating the national faith pledged to the confederated States, or that of doing injustice to individuals among our citizens.

Because the exertions of a State in critical moments depend upon its credit: and this credit can only be maintained by availing itself of every favorable opportunity to discharge debts incurred in the day of danger; that to add, therefore, to this debt when the State is at peace and has no public demand for money is directly to contradict the most obvious principles of national policy.

Because the bill supposes a power in the State to establish the credit of this paper, and yet applies only a small proportion thereof to pay the debts already incurred on the faith of government, but mortgages the most productive funds of the State for the redemption of the new paper, and thus (discouraging virtuous and patriotic exertions) postpones the interest of those creditors who have lent their support to the State while struggling with adversity, to the private advantage of others who may be willing to engage in the new loan.

Because no provision is made for enabling the inhabitants of the county of Columbia to borrow on the same terms with the other citizens of the State. If the being able to take up public

money on loan is advantageous, they should be permitted to avail themselves of that advantage. If it is disadvantageous, the bill should not pass into a law.

CITY OF NEW YORK, April 14, 1786. Present-Governor Clinton; Livingston, Chancellor; Morris, Chief Justice; Yates and Hobart, Justices.

The bill entitled "An act for emitting the sum of £200,000 in bills of credit, for the purposes therein mentioned," being still before the Council, Justice Hobart reported the following objections (as a substitute for those immediately preceding, of Chancellor Livingston), viz.:

Because, by the fifty-eighth section, it is enacted "that the bills of credit to be emitted shall be a legal tender in all cases where any suit is or shall be brought or commenced for any debt or damages, and the costs of suit in any stage of the proceedings thereof," thus enabling a man to pay his debts in bills of credit, before the credit of those bills is established, and it is ascertained that the credit or will receive a valuable consideration in return for what he had advanced to the debtor, which would prove an unwarrantable interference in private contracts.

The supreme Legislature of the State, it is true, may, by an act of sovereign power, annihilate at once all the debts that are due in the State, without any consideration; but this cannot destroy the justice of the demand, nor weaken the force of the obligation in foro conscientiæ. So may they by the same power declare that a piece of gold, of leather or paper shall be received in satisfaction for a debt contracted by the delivery of an ox or horse; but this cannot be deemed an honest payment unless the creditor can replace the ox or the horse he sold, with the gold the leather or the paper which he has been obliged to receive.

Money, considered as a medium of commerce, has in itself no intrinsic value. The amount of the annual income of any person or nation cannot be estimated by the number of pieces of money which are received in the course of a year, but by the quantity of the comforts, conveniences and necessaries of life which can be