Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 1.djvu/414

 406 ïliOBIUIi BSPOBTEr.. �■which property he holds for the benefit only of those credit- ors who prove their debts within a fixed period, their right to partieipate in the distribution of it thereby becoming vested. AU other creditors are excluded from any share of the as- signed estate, but their rights are not otherwise afïected. �By the plain terms of the statute, as well as by repeated judicial exposition of it, the participating creditors are barred of any suit, in law or equity, against the assignee, except in respect of the property upon which the assignment operates. He is protected against personal liability to them, his future acquisitions are unavailable to them, and in every beneficiai and practical sense the relation of debtor and creditor between them ceases to exist. It follows, therefore, that if the title of the voluntary assignee to the property conveyed by the assign- ment is indefeasible by the assignee in bankruptcy, the cred- itors who proved their claims under the assignment could not pass a valid resolution of composition. �This depends upon the effect of the thirty-fifth section of the original bankrupt act, which has been divided into sec- tions 5128 and 5129, in the Eevised Statutes. �The first of these sections (5128) avoids preferences to creditors, when made vrithin four months- before the date of proceedings in bankruptcy; and the latter (5129) avoids ail conveyances made in violation of the provisions of the bank- rupt act within six months of the date of such proceedings.. �It is only necessary to say, in reference to the act of June 22, 1874, that it is inoperative in this case. Its abbreviation of the period within which preferences and conveyances in violation of the bankrupt law may be avoided is expressly limited to cases of involuntary bankfuptcy, leaving the origi- nal enactment unchanged in ail cases of voluntary bankruptcy.. �I think there is no reason to doubt that the voluntary assignment here does not fall within the class of preferences to which section 5128 of the Eevised Statutes exclusively" applies, and which are avoidable when made within foitr months before the date of proceedings in bankruptcy. By the terms of the state law under which it was made ail the prop- erty of the assigner vests in his assignee for the equal benefit ��� �