Foreign Receivers and Judicial Assignees. insolvent debtors*? I am not speaking with reference to the settled construction which the constitutional provision has received. I am asking for conclusions as to its obvious meaning. Is it not plain that the courts of every state refuse all faith and credit to proceedings under the insolvency laws of other states, whenever such proceedings touch the interests of their own citizens? Is there not an assumption underlying every decision upon this question, or an assertion to be read between the lines of every opinion, that no state court is willing to trust the courts of any other state to administer the estate of an insolvent debtor upon the ordinary principles of equity? I need not enlarge upon the obvious injus tice of allowing the citizens of a particular state, where the insolvent happens to have assets, by pouncing upon those assets, to get a preference over other creditors who stand in equal right with them. Such a scandalous state of the law would shock the conscience of any people not habituated to injustice. The state of things above de picted calls loudly for a new exertion of the power conferred upon Congress by the Con stitution, of establishing a uniform system of bankruptcy. It is true that every bank ruptcy law must, in the very nature of things,, prove unsatisfactory, and, in the course of time, create an opinion favorable to its repeal. The reason is that, under the operation of such a law, no creditor ever gets paid in full, and that, whatever safe guards may be thrown around its operation, it is found impossible to exclude official corruption. But any national system of bankruptcy, although badly administered, must be, on the whole, more just, and hence, preferable to any state insolvency system, in which the assignee or trustee has no power beyond the jurisdiction of his own state, and which leaves assets situated in other states to be seized upon by local creditors. But there is a consideration still more important. The conflict of judicial
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opinion upon the rights of foreign receivers, assignees, etc., admitted in almost every judicial opinion which can be taken up to be irreconcilable,- will never be reconciled, and we will never have a uniform Ameri can law upon the subject until the final decision of every such conflict shall be submitted to the decision of one court of last resort. Under the federal Constitution, as at present interpreted, no such court exists having jurisdiction of the subject. But I submit that, in this regard, the Con stitution has received too narrow an inter pretation; and that the Supreme Court of the United States should hold that the refusal to allow the judicial assignment of the property of an insolvent, made in another state, under the laws thereof, to operate within the domestic jurisdiction, is a refusal to give " full faith and credit to the judicial proceedings of such other state," within the meaning of the constitutional provision already quoted. I submit further, that it would not be a strained construction of the commerce clause, of the Constitution to hold that the refusal to allow receivers, assignees, or trustees of insolvent debtors appointed in other states, to collect, within any state, the debts which are due to the estate which they represent, is an interfer ence with the powers of Congress to regulate commerce between the states. Of what value is the right to sell goods in another state, free from discriminating excise laws, when the right to collect the purchase price is denied in case the vendor becomes in solvent? I submit further that, the federal union being established by the Constitution of the United States, and by that alone, the question of conflicting rights, within that Union, among citizens of the different states, — in short all questions of interstate law, — ought to be regarded as " federal questions," for the ultimate decision of which the Supreme Court of the United States has jurisdiction. I know that, in advancing these propositions, I am arguing against
