Page:A History of Banking in the United States.djvu/143

 had dropped. They wanted something to raise prices again long enough for them to unload on somebody else.

The history of the relief laws of the western States runs back to the first settlement of Virginia. Through the eighteenth century the laws for execution on judgments oscillated between security to the creditor and leniency to the debtor. Whenever "times were hard," the collection laws were relaxed; when the exigency passed, they were restored. The preambles of the laws throw an interesting light on the experience of these two lines of policy. It came to be the standard of severity, amongst those who had grown up under the Virginia tradition, that a debtor whose personal property was taken in execution might replevin the goods for three months on giving bond with surety for the debt and costs. In Kentucky, land was made liable to execution although it had not ben so in Virginia. When land was taken, an old Virginia institution was applied in a modified way. Appraisers were appointed and the land was valued. Originally this was a fair device where there was no proper market to make a price. It was adopted in all the States and Territories of the Mississippi Valley, except Louisiana and Michigan. In times of general indebtedness it became a means for the debtors to band together against the creditors. The laws provided, with various minor differences, that the land or property should not be sold unless it would bring at auction one-half or two-thirds or other fraction of the appraisal made by neighbors who were all likewise debtors. If it did not, it was restored to the debtor for a year or other period. The term of replevin was also sometimes extended. Later, this was connected with a provision that the debtor should have a replevin for a year or other set time unless the creditor would endorse on the writ that the officer might accept in payment some specified kind of currency; being always a depreciated kind. These laws always provided that, if the debtor did not avail himself of his relief, the property should be sold on a credit for a term which corresponded to the delay which he might have had under the law; the buyer to give a bond to pay at the term.

The collection laws of Kentucky were brought back, in the first years of the century, to the old standard above described, but at the beginning of the inflation period they began to be relaxed again. The laws staying execution, unless the creditor endorsed the writ, were extended from year to year; but in 1818 the required endorsement was only for notes of the Bank of the United States or of the Bank of Kentucky.

February 6, 1819, the endorsement law was further extended till February 5, 1820, but the endorsement was now to provide for notes of the Bank of Kentucky only. This Bank of Kentucky, whose notes the creditor must agree to take, had suspended in the middle of November, 1818, but was compelled by public opinion to resume within a week. It was, therefore, limping along during the year 1819.

Committees of the Bank of Kentucky, the Farmers' and Mechanics' Bank of Lexington, the Commercial Bank of Louisville, and the Louisville