Page:United States Reports 502 OCT. TERM 1991.pdf/577

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Cite as: 502 U. S. 410 (1992)

419

Opinion of the Court

statute permitted involuntary reduction of the amount of a creditor’s lien for any reason other than payment on the debt. Our cases reveal the Court’s concern about this. In Long v. Bullard, 117 U. S. 617, 620–621 (1886), the Court held that a discharge in bankruptcy does not release real estate of the debtor from the lien of a mortgage created by him before the bankruptcy. And in Louisville Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, 295 U. S. 555 (1935), the Court considered additions to the Bankruptcy Act effected by the Frazier-Lemke Act, 48 Stat. 1289. There the Court noted that the latter Act’s “avowed object is to take from the mortgagee rights in the specific property held as security; and to that end ‘to scale down the indebtedness’ to the present value of the property.” 295 U. S., at 594. The Court invalidated that statute under the Takings Clause. It further observed: “No instance has been found, except under the Frazier-Lemke Act, of either a statute or decision compelling the mortgagee to relinquish the property to the mortgagor free of the lien unless the debt was paid in full.” Id., at 579. Congress must have enacted the Code with a full understanding of this practice. See H. R. Rep. No. 95–595, p. 357 (1977) (“Subsection (d) permits liens to pass through the bankruptcy case unaffected”). 4. When Congress amends the bankruptcy laws, it does not write “on a clean slate.” See Emil v. Hanley, 318 U. S. 515, 521 (1943). Furthermore, this Court has been reluctant to accept arguments that would interpret the Code, however vague the particular language under consideration might be, to effect a major change in pre-Code practice that is not the subject of at least some discussion in the legislative history. See United Savings Assn. of Texas v. Timbers of Inwood Forest Associates, Ltd., 484 U. S. 365, 380 (1988). See also Pennsylvania Dept. of Public Welfare v. Davenport, 495 U. S. 552, 563 (1990); United States v. Ron Pair Enterprises, Inc., 489 U. S. 235, 244–245 (1989). Of course, where the language is unambiguous, silence in the legislative history can-