[Footnote 4: Payment or assumption of State stocks by the General
Government.]
WASHINGTON, _June 30, 1841_.
_To the House of Representatives of the United States_:
The accompanying memorial in favor of the passage of a bankrupt law,
signed by nearly 3,000 of the inhabitants of the city of New York, has
been forwarded to me, attended by a request that I would submit it to
the consideration of Congress. I can not waive a compliance with a
request urged upon me by so large and respectable a number of my
fellow-citizens. That a bankrupt law, carefully guarded against
fraudulent practices and embracing as far as practicable all classes of
society--the failure to do which has heretofore constituted a prominent
objection to the measure--would afford extensive relief I do not doubt.
The distress incident to the derangements of some years past has visited
large numbers of our fellow-citizens with hopeless insolvency, whose
energies, both mental and physical, by reason of the load of debt
pressing upon them, are lost to the country. Whether Congress shall deem
it proper to enter upon the consideration of this subject at its present
extraordinary session it will doubtless wisely determine. I have
fulfilled my duty to the memorialists in submitting their petition to
your consideration.