ATTEMPTED REPEAL OF THE BANKRUPT ACT.
As soon as Congress met in the session 1841-'2 the House of
Representatives commenced the repeal of this measure. The period
for the act to take effect had been deferred by an amendment in
the House from the month of November, which would be before the
beginning of the regular session, to the month of February--for the
well-known purpose of giving Congress an opportunity to repeal it
before it went into operation. The act was odious in itself, and the
more so from the manner in which it was passed--coercively, and by
the help of votes from those who condemned it, but who voted for it
to prevent its friends from defeating the bank bill, and the land
distribution bill. Those two measures were now passed, and many of
the coerced members took their revenge upon the hated bill to which
they had temporarily bowed. The repeal commenced in the House,
and had a rapid progress through that body. A motion was made to
instruct the Judiciary Committee to bring in a bill for the repeal;
and that motion succeeded by a good majority. The bill was brought
in, and, under the pressure of the previous question, was quickly
brought to a vote. The yeas were 124--the nays 96. It then went to
the Senate, where it was closely contested, and lost by one vote--22
for the repeal: 23 against it. Thus a most iniquitous act got into
operation, by the open joining of measures which could not pass
alone; and by the weak calculation of some members of the House, who
expected to undo a bad vote before it worked its mischief. The act
was saved by one vote; but met its fate at the next session--having
but a short run; while the two acts which it passed were equally,
and one of them still more short lived. The fiscal bank bill,
which was one that it carried, never became a law at all: the land
distribution bill, which was the other, became a law only to be
repealed before it had effect. The three confederate criminal bills
which had mutually purchased existence from each other, all perished
prematurely, fruitless and odious--inculcating in their history and
their fate, an impressive moral against vicious and foul legislation.