that there is specie enough to do all legitimate business, and that we shall have it whenever we have produce or anything else to buy it with, and that any value not measured by this standard is fictitious and unsafe. The staple of the West has always commanded as good a price in proportion to that in the eastern cities under the specie as it ever did under the paper circulation-exchanges on the East have been much lower and all sorts of business except gambling— quite as active. So it will be through the territory as soon as the fog which designing men have thrown around the subject will have evaporated before the light of reason and common sense.

AN ARGUMENT FOR HOMESTEAD EXEMPTION
[March 27, 1847]

The following is an extract from a speech delivered in the Michigan legislature on the bill to exempt the homestead of a family from forced sale, by J. D. Pierce of Calhoun County. Mr. Pierce was formerly superintendent of public instruction in Michigan, where he is held in high estimation for sound judgment and a philanthropic heart. The principle for which he contends is everywhere gaining ground rapidly, and the day is not far distant when the turning a family naked upon the world for the misfortune or improvidence of its head will be regarded with as much horror as imprisonment for debt now is. I care not what the professions of a man may be he may affirm that he is friendly to the poor-to the laborer-but when he adopts such a course of action and especially such principles of legislation that must in the end turn that laborer with a dependent family into the highway, I have a right to put my own estimate upon the value of those professions.

I said, sir, that the relations of the gentleman were such that I expected he would oppose this bill. The great leader of the party, Henry Clay, has gone so far as to represent that class of men who have been deprived by the operation of laws in the older states of a home and who have left all and sought a home upon the wild, uncultivated, unappropriated lands of the far West, where the wolf and deer, with the Indians, have roamed for ages, as trespassers. I suppose he would write them down as pirates and robbers. But this is not all. When the labor of these very men has given a value to this land-for it had no value before the cupidity of wealth is in hot pursuit to share in the spoils and to push them onward still. Now, sir, I undertake to say that there is no right, no justice, no equity, no reason in that system of legislation which puts it into the

power of the man who has voluntarily trusted another to deprive that man of a home and turn his family out of doors. Sir, I go farther. I plant myself on this broad principle: that every man has a natural, inherent right to being on the earth, and he has such a right to a portion of this earth. He has a right to enter into the family state, and to subsist that family, and he has an equal right to a portion of this earth on which he may plant a vine and fig tree; and under that vine and fig tree it is his right to sit, and no other man has or can have the right to molest or make him afraid. This is the right of every man, independent of all human legislation.

Sir, the God of nature hath made of one blood all nations of men, to dwell on all the face of the earth. And yet the legislation of this republic deprives thousands of a home, not only men able to labor, but the feeble, the sick, the lame, the halt, the blind, and more—and justice requires me to add to the list-helpless women and children. But all such legislation is founded on the grossest usurpation and is the perfection of barbarism.

One word in this connection with regard to the sneer at what is termed "progressive" Democracy. I cannot but rejoice, sir, that it has been my lot to live in an age of improvement. I can remember the time when such a thing as a steamboat, a railroad, a canal, the magnetic telegraph, was wholly unknown-when scarcely any of those things had entered into the dreaming reveries of the wildest imagination. There has been improvement in every branch of science in the arts and manufactures, and in the mechanic arts. And is there to be no improvement in the science of governmentno advancement in legislation and in the social condition of man? What if the conservative principle had been adopted at the time of the Revolution? What would have been the condition of these states? Look to Canada for an answer. There the conservative principle has been predominant in the government, and its fruits may be seen, go where you will.

Sir, let us go back a little. The first division of land of which we have any account was between Lot and Abraham. To prevent strife one took the plain, the other the hill country. The next division was when the people of Israel took possession of the land granted to their forefathers by deed of cession ages before. The whole land was divided by lot. Every man had a portion; every man had his possession yea more-when there were no sons in the family the daughters came in for a portion. Under that system of legislation all were cared for-all shared in the inheritance. But this is not all. That estate could never be alienated under any circumstances

for debt. Such was the policy of the Jewish law, it gave every man a home; it took care that no family should be left destitute; it allowed every man a piece of ground on which he might live and plant him a vine and fig tree. True, the use of this estate might be taken for a limited time for the benefit of the creditor. But it never could be alienated on account of debt. And once in fifty years all debts were canceled by the operation of law. Unlike the bankrupt law of the United States, designed and adapted to favor a certain class the $52,000 debtor-that law applied equally to all classes. Every man and every family returned to the full and quiet possession of the paternal inheritance.

How liberal the provisions of that code in comparison with our system of legislation. With us the man has been nothing-his family nothing-but money all in all! Wealth has ruled, has made laws, has governed with an iron, unrelenting hand.

Again, sir, the old English law of the barons was the law of liberty. Under that law every man's house was his castle; and it should be so. True there were many without home-many poor and dependent on the barons. But it is the principle of the law to which I refer. That principle was right; it constituted the first element of civil liberty. Without it liberty is but a name and freedom an empty sound. The same principle ought to be extended to every man in this country who shall by his labor procure for himself and family a home. That home should be inalienable except by his own hand and seal. Every man's house should be his castle. It is the business of the legislature to make it so-to throw around that home the shield of its protection.

SELECTIONS FROM THE MADISON EXPRESS

MASSACHUSETTS' PROVISION FOR THE RIGHTS OF MARRIED WOMEN

[January 19, 1847]

The section on this subject in the constitution reads as follows: "All property real and personal of the wife, owned by her at the time of her marriage and also that acquired by her after marriage by gift, devise, descent, or otherwise than from her husband shall be her separate property. Laws shall be passed providing for the registry of the wife's property and more clearly defining the rights of the wife thereto as well as to property held by her with her husband, and for carrying out the provisions of this section. Where the wife has a separate property from that of the husband the same shall be liable for the debts of the wife contracted before marriage."

It will be observed that the property which belonged to the wife before marriage remains hers absolutely by force of the above constitutional provision, without any action of the legislature whatever. We have heard that some have contended that unless the legislature passes an act in relation to the subject, the above provision will be inoperative, but such cannot be the case. The language is plain and explicit; the wife's property remains hers after marriage for all purposes whatever. If it consists in money, she may loan it, or she may engage in trade with it, either alone or in partnership with others; she may exchange it for other property and do and deal with it as she pleases without the aid of legislation; the constitution gives her all this power. Legislation will indeed be necessary to prevent fraud, to provide some means by which the wife's property can be distinguished from the husband's, and by making it compulsory on her to register it, this may in some measure be accomplished; but it will be utterly impossible to prevent the grossest frauds so long as the wife is engaged in trade and is dealing with her property on her own account. A registry of her property one day would be no evidence of what she might own the next, if she has engaged in trade or in any business which made frequent exchanges and shifts of property necessary, and creditors of the husband would in such cases, we fear, generally find that the wife would claim whatever property they might resort to for the purpose of enforcing the payment of

their debts. A law of this kind to be endurable should inhibit the wife from engaging in business on her own account and provide how her property should be invested.

The state of Massachusetts by an act passed on the twenty-fifth of March 1845, gave married women the right to hold property in their own names without the intervention of trustees, free from the husband's debts, but inserted in the act this provision: "None of the property to be holden by any married woman by virtue of the provisions of this act shall be used or employed for the purpose of trade and commerce; but the same shall be invested in real estate, in stocks of the United States, in state stocks, in corporation stocks, in personal securities, or in furniture in the actual use and occupation of such woman." It will be seen that by this act the property of the wife is effectually secured to her, but she is not permitted to engage in business which would withdraw her attention from the affairs of her family-she is not taken from her appropriate sphere and placed in the countingroom or store of the merchant; she is not stimulated by the hope of making money in trade, to turn merchant or cattle drover, or to engage in any vocation incompatible with proper care and attention in her household. Not so with our law. It holds out to her all the inducements that present themselves to men to engage in trade and business, and if it produces its legitimate effect upon her character, we shall soon see females in every department of business and engaged in employments which will withdraw them from their families and prevent them from discharging those duties which have heretofore been considered to belong to them exclusively. In short, we shall see in every family where the wife has property two interests instead of one, and that peace and harmony which now so generally reign in the family circle give place to discord and contention. For our part we are not prepared for such a change in the social system as this law will produce; we cannot look quietly on and see the foundation upon which society rests broken up and subverted.

A NEW CONVENTION

[February 9, 1847]

Last Friday and Saturday the Council was occupied by a discussion of the bill providing for another convention in June next in case the present constitution is rejected. We may truly say that the discussion called out fully the ability of that body, with a wide range to exert itself in. The debate was not confined to the