has not granted it all to specific courts, and therefore the courts do not exercise it. The Constitution gives to Congress legislative power in all cases of admiralty jurisdiction, from whence has occurred one of the most extraordinary of all circumstances—that causes of revenue have become cases of admiralty jurisdiction. * * *
Many things are directed to be punished, in the act of 1800, on the high seas, which are neither piracies nor felonies, although the Constitution, speaking of the judicial power, restricts it to piracies and felonies, which would infer that the Constitution was then held to grant larger power by the other clause.
Internal Improvement.
Mr. CAMBRELENG said he had hitherto uniformly, but silently, opposed measures of this character, only from a doubt of the constitutional power of the federal government. He had, however, devoted much attention to the question; and, after mature deliberation, he had been led to the conclusion that, if a government, enjoying the entire post-road and military powers of this Union, could not constitutionally construct a road or a canal, then it had no incidental power whatever. He had, accordingly, for the first time, given his vote in favor of a subscription to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
Mr. BERRIEN said, as to the general right, asserted for the Union, to make roads through all the Indian countries, against such a doctrine he should desire to protest. He would draw a distinction between those lands of Indians living within limits of the states which came into the confederation, with certain chartered limits, and those living within states who, at the time of the formation of the Constitution, had no limits, and whose limits were only defined by the laws regulating their admission into the Union.
Bankruptcy.
Mr. VAN BUREN. At the time of the adoption of the Constitution, they [bankruptcy and insolvent laws] were known and distinguished, both in England and in this country, as distinct systems—the one having for its object to afford a summary and speedy remedy for creditors against fraudulent or failing traders; the other affording relief to insolvent debtors of all denominations. The Constitution of the United States, he said, had clothed the national legislature with power to establish the former, and had left the right to pass, and the duty of establishing, the latter, upon the state governments. The 93d section of this bill, he said, was, upon any definition that might be given of the different terms, an insolvent law. If it passed,—that is, if Congress had the constitutional power to pass it,—the states had no right to pass any law upon the subject of insolvency; not even to authorize the discharge of debtors imprisoned upon a process issuing out of their own courts, otherwise than as it might suit the pleasure or convenience of Congress to permit. There was, he said, no middle ground. If the partition wall between bankruptcy and insolvency was once broken down, all state legislation was subjected to the absolute and arbitrary supervision of Congress. He did not believe that such was the design of the framers of the Constitution. He did not
